1931 Maine Central Railroad Schedule

Here's a scan of a Maine Central Railroad schedule from 1931. The Maine Central Wikipedia entry details the "retraction" of the railroad after World War I.

Following World War I, Maine Central began retracting. It sold or abandoned lines such as the narrow gauge logging systems, as well as its ferries and steamships. In the 1930s it began to change its locomotives from steam powered to diesel powered.

Faced with increased competition from cars, trucks and buses, Maine Central operated its last passenger train on September 5, 1960, and continued to reduce its freight business to reflect changing traffic.

The Maine Central doesn't yet appear on this 1860 map of New England railroads, but shows up on the 1899 version.

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Shepard Homestead Excavation in Kittery

The homestead of one of my earliest Maine ancestors, John Shepard of Kittery, was excavated in spring 2002 as a joint project of the History Department of Salem State College and the Kittery Historical & Naval Museum. A map drawn in the 17th century helped in the excavation.

William Godsoe had drafted a map of this specific area in 1689. The map shows Shepard’s house, barn, an outbuilding and the orchard, as well as the home of his neighbor, Paul Williams.

The pictorial and archaeological evidence of the Shepard outbuildings is extremely important, for it gives a chance to closely study not just a seventeenth-century home, but the entire farm complex. While much work has been done on seventeenth-century farm out buildings in Virginia and Maryland, the Shepard site is the first site in Maine where outbuildings have been found.

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Maine ZIP Codes

This Google map mashup shows the boundaries of most of Maine's ZIP codes. Codes run from 03901 (Berwick) to 04992 (West Farmington).

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Perham's Closing

Perham's of West Paris will be closing in July after 90 years in business.

The store, which sold minerals and gems as well as books and equipment for prospecting, was opened in 1919 by Stanley Perham. In December, Stanley's daughter and current owner Jane Perham said she would close the store until June 1, but the business did not reopen.

In addition to the store, the business includes a museum display of gems and minerals unearthed at local quarries. Perham and her father have sent samples to the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution.

The pieces in the museum display will be given to a private party who will keep them in Maine. Perham said her brother was hoping to keep the quarries he owns open for public access as long as they are covered by liability insurance. [Link]

Her brother, Frank Perham, is Maine's leading expert on pegmatites, and even has a mineral—Perhamite—named for him.

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Ed McMahon, Bingo Caller

Ed McMahon got his professional start calling bingo at a carnival in Mexico, Maine.

On our arrival in Mexico it turned out we had joined one of the toughest carnivals on the road. The night before a guy had been killed by another guy. He got angry and hit his friend over the head with a sledgehammer. That smarts!

The carnival had closed for the night and the wake was going on when we pulled into the grounds and started setting up to be ready to start calling bingo bright and early the next morning. This was hard work and all five men in the troupe including Frank, the boss, worked at it. It meant raising the tent, setting up the counters in the interior and the display table in the back, hooking up the PA system and the lights that would make the prizes look prettier than they really were.

We did what they told me was good business and I was enjoying the whole new experience tremendously. I was beginning to feel at home among the people, the sights, and the smells of the carnival and I wanted to be 100 percent one of them. [Here's Ed: The Autobiography of Ed McMahon, pp. 87-88]

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Free Access to Images of America

Until July 31, 2009, you can browse several Maine titles from the Arcadia Publishing Images of America series. If asked to log in, enter:

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Password: 69preventative2

Local and Regional History Online: A History of American Life in Images and Texts is a unique new resource cultivated from Arcadia Publishing's award-winning series of local history books. At completion, it will include over 1 million historical images and texts, celebrating the places and faces that give America its spirit and life. All of the images and texts have been indexed to provide an unprecedented level of access into the contents, enabling users to explore the depth of a town's history or to compare the histories of various towns, cultures, ethnic groups, architectural features, and more.

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Portland Ink

There's a great post today at Strange Maps about the city of Portland, inspired by an unusual tattoo.

Fixing her regional loyalty in indelible ink on skin, Julia had a map of Portland, ME tattooed on her shoulder. A comparison with the more conventional map on the right indicates that her tat clearly shows the Portland peninsula, the Fore River, Back Cove and surrounding coastline, plus a large part of the road network connecting Maine’s biggest city to its hinterland.

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