Hidden History of Bangor: From Lumbering Days to the Progressive Era by Reilly Wayne E

Author:Reilly, Wayne E.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-06-24T16:00:00+00:00

“STRONG MEN” SEIZED THE DAY

June 13, 2011

The conventional wisdom is that the fire was an unmitigated disaster for the Queen City of the East. Yet many of Bangor’s leaders saw immediately something quite different as they surveyed the smoking ruins. Amidst the wreckage, they envisioned a historic opportunity to transform the city into a place more closely approximating its regal nickname.

The Reverend David Beach, president of Bangor Theological Seminary. Courtesy of Richard R. Shaw.

That Monday morning, the day after the fire, David Beach, president of Bangor Theological Seminary, wrote in the Bangor Daily News that he saw “a silver lining” in the disaster. “In this moment of appalling calamity, Bangor faces the future with undaunted spirit. The enterprise and taste which have built the city will swiftly rebuild its burned section,” wrote the Reverend Beach, one of the city’s most respected civic leaders. “As with Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Portland and other cities which have experienced like disasters, the rebuilding will be more substantial, convenient and imposing.” Beach predicted Bangor would be “the busiest city in Maine for a long time to come” thanks to the building boom ahead. That meant lots of jobs with good wages—something Bangoreans valued far more than old buildings, many of which had been falling down.

The Bangor Daily Commercial, the city’s other newspaper, offered its readers a similar vision on May 3. Robert Sprague, a University of Maine economics and sociology professor and a well-known progressive commentator, wrote, “Bangor today has the greatest opportunity to become really the Queen City of the East, the most beautiful town on the coast.” He called upon the city’s “strong men” to step forth and shape the community’s destiny. “I have never known a city to have such a natural opportunity [to become] a great civic center which would be a glory to her forever.”

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