LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ^ 014 433 332 9 # ^ :^ BANGOR, MAINE. Interesting Facts Briefly Told* ISSUED BY THE BANGOR BOARD OF TRADE 1906 /:: C. H. GLASS & CO., PBINXEBS, BANOOB u /-- BANGOR Compiled by E. M. Blanding, Secretary Bangor Board of Trade. Bangor is the most easterly city of its size in the United States. It is located nearer the geographical centre of Maine than any other city. It is the largest city on the largest river in the largest state in New England. It is universally conceded to be one of the best lighted cities on the entire globe. It manufactures a larger amount of high grade cigars than any other city or town in Maine, It has the largest picture frame establishment in Maine and one of the largest in New England. It is admirably located for shipbuilding and many fine vessels have been constructed in this vicinity. It is an important centre for the manufacture of clothing and many establishments are located here. In the immediate vicinity of Bangor is located the orly factory for the manufacture of torpedoes in Maine. It is an important centre for the manufacture of paper boxes and shipments are made all over this region. It is one of the few cities in the country that owns both its water works and its municipal electric light- ing plaj^t. ^ r It has numerous and flourishing spring bed man- ufactories and this product enjoys a vade distribution. It is about the only city on the globe where salmon fly fishing can be practised successfully within the city limits. It has the largest trunk manufactory in New Eng- land and trunks are shipped out of the state by the trainload. It has in the Bangor House the largest hotel in Maine open all the year round for the entertainment of guests. It is admirably located for the harvesting and shipping of ice, and Penobscot river ice has no superior the world over. It has the largest taxidermy establishment in America and the products are shipped from here all over the globe. It has one of the finest half-mile tracks in New England and each fall the Eastern Maine State Fair is holden here. It is the largest centre for the manufacture of moccasins in the country and they are shipped all over North America. It justly claims to have raised the first company of volunteers that enlisted in the United States to put down the Rebellion. It has in the new concrete car stable of the Bangor Railway & Electric Company the first edifice of its kind erected in Maine. It is a trade centre and shipping point for a large and rich agricultural section and for many thriving industrial communities. It has in the buildings recently erected by the Eastern Steamship Co., the largest and finest steam- ship terminals in Maine. It has the only large establishment for the manu. facture of saws in Maine and saws are shipped from here all over the Northeast. Within a radius of a dozen miles of the city are manufactured more canoes than are made in any other part of the United States. It is noted for the number and excellence of its woodworking establishments and the products there- from enjoy a wide distribution. Its schools are unsurpassed by any New England city, while its system of parks will compare favorably with any municipality of its size. It has in the Auditorium the largest exhibition and convention hall in Maine and here each fall is held the Eastern Maine Music Festival. It is an important centre for the manufacture of boots and shoes and the footwear manufactured here is shipped all over the United States. It has manufacturing establishments numbering about 300, embracing many abd diverse industries, and employing several thousand hands. It is an important centre for the manufacture of stoves, ranges and furnaces, two of the largest plants in Maine in these lines being located here. It is widely known as a publishing centre, there being issued here regularly two daily newspapers, a semi-weekly, two weeklies and two monthlies. It has a large and steadily expanding wholesale trade, many and important jobbing houses being located here, and it is also a flourishing retail centre. Building operations in Bangor both on new con- struction and repair work have been more extensive the present year than ever before in the city's history. It is an important centre for the manufacture of axes and edge tools and also for cant dogs, more of the latter being made here than anywhere else in the east. It is a centre for the manufacture of saw mill machinery and a large amount of repair work is also done by the extensive machine works established here. It is the home of the Bangor Theological Seminary and the University of Maine Law School, and distant only nine miles by electric road is the University of Maine. The Penobscot River as a scenic water highway has no superior and the sail from Bangor to the ocean is unsurpassed in picturesqueness by the Hudson or the Rhine. It is the home of the Eastern Maine General Hos- pital and the Eastern Maine Insane Hospital; the Bangor City Farm is one of the best appointed in New England. It has a population of about 25,000 and with its immediate environs about 40,000, while Penobscot County of which it is the capital, has a population of upwards of 76,000. It has a fine harbor, easily accessible and entirely safe for vessels of large size, there being several miles of deep water frontage and the docks at High Head afford excellent facilities for the larger craft, either steam or sail, engaged in foreign commerce and the ocean carrying trade. Bangor has the honor of having nine towns named for it located in California, Washington, Kansas, So. Dakota, Iowa, Michigan, Kentucky, North Carolina and Prince Edward Island. It is to have in the new railway passanger station now building here by the Maine Central Railroad the largest railway passenger station in Maine and one of the finest in New England. It is a point of convergence for numerous impor- tant railway and steamship lines and a consequent tarrying place for great numbers of tourists, sports- men and commercial travelers. It is an important centre for the manufacture of crackers, and here are located two large establish- ments, one of them being among the largest of its kind in Northern New England. It has two strong and flourishing marine insur- ance companies with a total capital of $200,000, and "assets aggregating $724,553. These are the only Maine marine insurance companies in the state. Bangor's loyalty to the flag is strikingly illustrated in the erection at Mount Hope Cemetery in 1864 of the first soldiers' monument to be reared in the mem- ory of those who fell in the war of the Rebellion. It has one of the finest Opera Houses in the state ; the Y. M. C. A. building is one of the handsomest edifices of its kind in New England, and the Penob- scot County Court House is a very creditable structure. i An important industry of this vicinity is the man- ufacture of pulp and paper, and the immense pulp and paper mills located along the Penobscot have a daily capacity of 410 tons of paper and 635 tons of pulp. It is at the head of navigation on the Penobscot River which is the largest river in the state and drains a territory'' 8,200 square miles in extent, all within the limits of the state. It is noted for the number and excellence of its hotels and being midway between Bar Harbor and Moosehead Lake is a favorite resort of tourists during the summer months. It is the gateway to the great fish and game resorts of the north and east, the shipments of big game through this city in a single year aggregating 5,295 deer and 191 moose. It is an important center of the brick-making industry and in Bangor and the adjoining city of Brewer many millions of brick are made annually, shipments being made all over New England and beyond. It is the natural gateway to the Northeast and the territory tributary to the city includes the five great counties of Penobscot, Piscataquis, Aroostook, Washington and Hancock, and portions of Waldo and Somerset. The number of vessels of all classes registered or enrolled at the port of Bangor is eighty-seven, includ- ing seventy-eight sailing vessels, seven steamers, and two steam yachts, with an aggregate tonnage of 20,691 net tons. The city's valuation is steadily expanding, and according to the assessor's books is now $18,488,213 against $15,817,118 in 1900. The total number of polls is 6692 against 6061 in 1900. The total number of persons of school age from 5 to 12 years is 7196 for 1906 against 5704 in 1905. The Bangor Gas Light Company has a capacity of one hundred million cubic feet of gas annually. The consumption the past year aggregated forty million cubic feet, an increase of 60^ in ten years. There are thirty-five miles of gas mains. • It is supplied with water drawn from the Penob- scot by the Holly System. The Bangor Water Works have a daily pumping capacity of 13,000,000 gallons with forty-six miles of water pipes and affording at the same time admirable fire protection. It has in the City Hall an edifice that is a credit to the city, and the Public Library, soon to be built on an eligible site, will be one of the handsomest and most elaborate in Maine, the fund available for build- ing purposes now being in excess of $130,000. ■ The Bangor Public Library according to an official bulletin recently issued by the U. S. Census Bureau, ranks third among cities of its class, there being only two cities in the entire United States with a similar population which have a larger number of volumes. It has numerous enjoyable drives, there being in the vicinity many picturesque lakes, while Riverside on the west bank of the Penobscot four miles below the city and easily reached by trolley cars, has one of the best appointed summer theatres in New England. Bangor has connection via the Bangor & Aroos- took Railroad both at Greenville and Brownville Junc- tion with the Canadian Pacific Railway. By means of this great trans-continental railroad direct commu- nication is enjoyed with the west and the Pacific Coast, while in connection with the Soo Line, Bangor is brought nearer Minneapolis, St. Paul and the North- west than any other seaboard city. It has four national banks with a capital of $650,000 ; three trust and banking companies with a paid in capital of $475,000, and two savings banks with assets of $7,634,820. Bangor's financial institu- tions are sound and housed in handsome and commo- dious quarters. Bangor was the first city in the state to have an electric street railway in successful operation, as it was the first city in the state and about the first in the country to have a steam railroad. And it will be recalled that the first iron steamship built in America ran to this port and was christened Bangor. It has been a pioneer in every form of electrical development, and the power station of the Bangor Railway & Electric Company on the Penobscot, four miles above the city, is one of the earliest if not indeed the first example of harnessing water power and transmitting it electrically a considerable distance It has in the system of commercial lighting oper- ated by the Bangor Railway & Electric Company 37,900 electric lights in Bangor and vicinity, the record of an excess of a light for each unit of popula- tion being an unusual one, one and a half lights per capita being the highest record of any city in the country. An analysis of the freight trafiic statistics of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad shows that for the last railroad year there were transported 2,231,680,962 pounds of freight, an increase of 251,344,474 pounds over the record of the previous year. The shipments of potatoes over the B. & A. of last season's crop aggregated 7,724,952 bushels, 1,030,881 bushels greater than the previous year and eclipsing all previous records. The number of vessel arrivals in the port of Ban- gor during the past year was 1515 ; of these thirteen were from foreign ports, and during the same time there were twenty foreign clearances. The receipts by vessel during the past year included 361,680 tons of coal. The lumber surveyed in Bangor during the past ^ year amounted to 187,854,827 feet, which quantity has not been exceeded since 1872. The grand total of lumber manufactured on the Penobscot from the earliest times down to the present is 11,371,836,882 feet, an amount sufficient to encircle the globe more than eighty-six times. \i^^ iS < ' • 'j^i' The Maine Central Railroad brought during the past year to Bangor 205,221 tons of freight, and for- warded 357,823 tons from Bangor during the same time, making a total of 563,044 tons. There are eighty-four regular trains in and out of Bangor daily, 62 of these passenger trains and 22 freight, besides numerous special trains. In the vicinity of Bangor the Condeskeag Canoe and Country Club, the Meadow Brook Golf Club and the Niben Club have handsome and commodious homes, and the new club house now building for the Tarratine Club at an eligible site overlooking Centre Park in the heart of the city, is to be one of the finest clubhouses in New England. The Bangor Customs district reports for the last fiscal year exports amounting to $1,732,603 and the imports for the fiscal year were $1,407,264 ; while the ^ exports by vessel were for the calendar year $254,- 399.06 and included 6,936,847 feet of white birch spool bars to Hull, England, and Androssan, Scotland ; and 1,487,780 feet box shocks to Palermo and Messina, Italy. It has the honor of having the first National Bank in Maine organized under the national banking act, evolved out of the government's financial needs in the dark days of the Civil War. Of the nine national banks in Maine, with a surplus in excess of the amount of capital stock three of these are located in Bangor, and the oldest of the trust companies in Bangor also has a surplus in excess of its capital stock. The New England Telephone & Telegraph Com- pany reports 2800 subscribers in the city proper, and including the suburban lines the number in the Ban- gor district is 3300. In recent years there has been a very large development of business and Bangor's record of one telephone to every ten of population is equalled by few cities in the country. In the Bangor district the toll and exchange wires aggregate 3000 miles of wire. The city and its environs are linked together by a system of electric street railways, modern in equip- ment, with an abundance of power and under enter- prising and progressive management and the service being first class. There are sixty miles of electric street railway in Bangor and vicinity, all owned and operated by the Bangor Railway & Electric Company. Diuring the last railroad year the lines of the company transported 4,114,715 paying passengers, and the cars ran a total mileage of 995,000 miles. It has two large and flourishing Building and Loan Associations with resources aggregating $421,841.36. It is estimated that between 600 and 800 dwellings in the city have been built or acquired through the instrumentality of these organizations. Bangor has been the pioneer in the movement of Building and Loan Associations, and one of these was among the first to be organized in Maine and is still the largest in the state. Upwards of a dozen of the Building and Loan Associations now in Maine were organized directly through the efforts of Bangor citizens. As indicative of the city's expansion the receipts of the Bangor Post Office have increased since 1880 from $25,094.88 to $101,132.79, an increase during the past fiscal year of $10,590.06. During the past year the number of pieces of mail registered aggregated 19,715 pieces, a gain of 3,578 over the previous year. From the city eight rural free delivery routes radiate in different directions. The phenomenal activity in Bangor's real estate market is shown by an examination of the assessor's books. In making up this year's records there have been between 1500 and 1600 changes in entries, the largest by far in the history of the city and a remark- ably large number for a city the size of Bangor. Each change on the books does not represent a trans- fer in real estate, but in all probability the sales and transfers of Bangor real estate during the year are about 1000 in number. Bangor's streets are lighted with electricity gen- erated by a model plant of its own, power being fur- nished by the Bangor Water Works. The Bangor Railway & Electric Company furnish light and power in large quantities for domestic and commercial pur- poses and the Bodwell Water Power Company will also furnish electric power. Cheap electric power at tide- water means much for Bangor, and this is destined to be an important factor in the development of the city along industrial lines. Manufacturers before decid- ing where to locate should consider Bangor's advant- ages and confer with the Bangor Board of Trade. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ,1 014 433 332 9 # |