Articles by Wayne E. Reilly
WAYNE REILLY
Did Japanese prepare invasion in Maine woods?
“JAP SOLDIERS SWARM IN WOODS OF MAINE? Yellow Peril Threatens New England and New York … — Startling Disclosures by Disgruntled Agent of the Mikado” This astonishing headline appeared in the Bangor Daily News on May 15, 1913, a century ago this week. Were Japanese military forces planning an invasion ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
New sheriff dries out Bangor in 1913
BIG DROUTH BEGINS IN BANGOR TODAY, announced a large front page headline in the Bangor Daily News on Monday morning, April 14, 1913. That’s a drought of liquor, not rain, and everybody in Bangor knew that. Penobscot County Sheriff Wilbert Emerson had just been impeached by the Maine Legislature for ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Sheriff impeached in effort to close Bangor saloons
Maine had been trying unsuccessfully to enforce its first-in-the-nation prohibition law for more than 50 years. Nothing seemed to work in places like Bangor, not even a constitutional amendment or an army of state liquor detectives. Now, at the dawn of 1913, a century ago, a new Republican governor, William ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Sam Golden ran ‘greatest employment agency in America’
Bangor was no longer the “lumber capital of the world” a century ago, but it was still a major crossroads for thousands of loggers looking for jobs. Several Bangor employment agencies competed to supply workers to logging camps as well as paper mills, railroad construction and other large work sites. ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
F.O. Beal: ‘The man who put the bang in Bangor’
Bangoreans had reached the political boiling point a century ago as the long, cold winter settled over the Queen City of the East. A titanic battle over whether the city should adopt a new charter was raging. Negotiations with the trolley company over its franchise seemed hopelessly stalled. Still trying ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Livery stable battle marked horses’ decline in Bangor
Livery stables were still important places in cities and towns a century ago. You could rent a horse and wagon or board your horse when you were in town for a visit. The rise of the automobile, however, accompanied by the effort to clean up eyesores and pollution in the ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Autos transformed Maine a century ago
The automobile was transforming Maine a century ago. Only a dozen years after the first machine chugged hesitantly through Bangor, scaring horses and angering farmers, the future was clear. Here are a few examples of the changes on the horizon taken from Bangor’s two daily newspapers leading up to the ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Winter Food Fair featured lots of lights a century ago
Before the modern supermarket and the big box store, and certainly long before the Bangor Mall, the Queen City of the East had its annual Food Fair and Winter Carnival. The purpose of the event, held at City Hall in 1913 a century ago, was to stir up business during ...
WAYNE REILLY
Mae West played Bangor’s Bijou
Hardeen, the handcuff king, also known as Harry Houdini’s brother, was the headliner at the Bijou in Bangor in mid-December, 1912, a century ago. The next week, the top billing went to Mae West, fresh from Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater in New York. The teenage “singing comedienne” impressed audiences with her ...
WAYNE REILLY
Migration West caused Maine’s population to stagnate
The year 1840 was an important one in Maine history. That was the year the U.S. Census reported Maine’s population was growing much more slowly than the rest of the nation. Maine wasn’t getting smaller, but it wasn’t growing fast enough to keep up with most other states. Its population ...
WAYNE REILLY
New immigrants formed clubs in old Bangor
BANGOR, Maine — On Thanksgiving afternoon, Nov. 28, 1912, a century ago this week, the Ancient Order of Hibernians held its annual Old Folks’ Card Party in its meeting hall at 107 Union St. Thirty-five tables were set up for 100 players. More than a score of spectators watched from ...
Barry’s book on Maine deserves a place on the shelf
By Wayne E. Reilly on Nov. 17, 2012, at 4:55 p.m.
“MAINE: The Wilder Half of New England” by William David Barry, Tilbury House, Publishers, 290 pages, $30. Why would anyone take the time to write a history of a state? Finding historical similarities between Madawaska and Kittery, which must have a lot more in common with Portsmouth, N.H., is a ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Bangor’s TB crusade led to open-air school
Bangor people mobilized to fight tuberculosis a century ago. Hundreds of Bangoreans had died of the disease in the last couple of decades, and many more were ill. Everyone knew a victim. Anyone with a persistent cough or a pale face was under suspicion. The effort to eradicate this dread ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Magic lanterns lit up Bangor streets with 1912 election results
A century ago, long before TV, radio or the Internet, thousands of people gathered in downtown Bangor to watch national election returns magnified on giant screens in front of the city’s two newspaper buildings. Movie theaters and private clubs also became gathering places for political junkies wanting to get the ...
WAYNE REILLY
Transcontinental autoists braved hardships
I received an email recently from a reader who had discovered among some family papers a printed account of a nearly century-old automobile expedition from Bangor to San Diego, Calif., by four adventurers. Karen Walker of Veazie wondered who these old-time autoists were. Their names were not familiar to her. ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Who was who in Bangor a century ago?
Who was who in Bangor a century ago? I don’t mean the glittering socialites or the windiest politicos — the people who get their names in the newspaper all the time. I mean the really important people, the people who tried to keep their names out of the newspapers or ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Where was the Devil’s Half Acre?
Anyone familiar with Bangor’s history has heard of the Devil’s Half Acre, alias Hell’s Half Acre or The Acre. History buffs know that Satan’s playground was a half mythical center for merriment and mayhem, a place where loggers, sailors and other workingmen gathered to spend their cash on whiskey and ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
Monster parades marched through Bangor on Labor Day
What happened to Labor Day — the monster parades and brass bands, the worker pride, the bombastic speeches about the “honor and dignity” of laboring men and women? Here’s a glimpse of what used to go on in Bangor. On Labor Day, 1912, between 800 and 1,000 workingmen representing different ...
WAYNE E. REILLY
The exploits of Minnie Gilbert, ‘Queen of Thieves’
During the early years of the 20th century, a gang of yeggmen — contemporary slang for burglars who blew up safes — terrorized Maine’s small-town post offices, train stations, stores and other places where valuables were stored. The activities of what was originally called the Boston Shorty Gang first appeared ...
WAYNE REILLY
Odd Fellows convention a century ago highlighted African Americans in Bangor
Early on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 8, 1912, a century ago this week, a group of African-American men wearing dress suits and silk hats lined up for a parade in Bangor’s East Market Square, where city hall is currently located. Accompanied by the Brewer Band playing Sousa marches and ...
Since 1971, seven Maine children reported missing have not been found
Call put out for ground search volunteers in effort to find missing Glenburn teen
LePage: State will run out of money for DHHS bills June 10
Scandals, real and imagined
IRS targeting
In pursuit of the elusive tax-free status
Marcus Davis wins mixed martial arts main event at NEF VII
Gomes’ sacrifice fly in 10th lifts Red Sox past Twins
For those who are too fat for Abercrombie and Fitch
Kitchen Nightmares meltdown or: How to lose an argument online
Market Basket in Biddeford starts hiring 300 workers
I cheated; now husband wants an open marriage. Is that fair?