(upbeat music) (projector clicking) - Have you ever wondered where the television signal you're watching is coming from?

♪ I love to go a wanderin' (projector clicking) ♪ along the mountain track - Welcome to True North.

(upbeat music) (mysterious music) - Good evening and welcome to Mainewatch (upbeat music) (projector clicking) Welcome to From The Vault, a celebration of 60 years of Maine Public Television.

It was October 1937 when one of America's most wanted criminals and his henchmen made the mistake of coming to Bangor.

Maybe you know the story of Al Brady but whether you do or don't, that is coming up on today's episode as we go back to 1994 for two episodes of "Things That Aren't There Anymore".

We will look at the time Al Brady came to Bangor and specifically where he stayed the night before, a great roadside attraction in Carmel called "Auto Rest Park".

Also we'll look at the old Union Station rail stations once in Bangor and Portland and also the old Bijou movie theater in Bangor.

So let's get right to it as we go back to 1994 for "Things That Aren't There Anymore".

(bright music) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Time has a way of slipping by and things that meant a great deal to us change or disappear altogether.

But our memories linger and soften.

Sometimes the only proof we have of places that were once important in our lives are photographs or souvenirs.

They remind us of our experiences with things that aren't there anymore.

(gentle music) Before the days of the Concorde Jet, there was train travel.

In the late 1800s, and through the first half of this century in Maine, trains brought people to and from their hometowns.

You could hop on the train and go just about anywhere in the country.

Two stations in Maine, one in Portland and one in Bangor were not only beautiful buildings, but represented perhaps the most public places in each of the cities.

They were both called Union Station.

(lively music) Earle Shuttleworth of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

- In the original historical sense, Union Station meant the union of many lines, of many attracts, of many roots of transportation that they would all come together at that point.

(lively music) - [Narrator] In Portland, Union Station was a grand building on a grand scale.

Built in 1888, the station was originally the connection of the Boston and Maine, Maine Central and Portland and Ogdensburg railroads.

- As a piece of architecture.

Of course, it was pure late 19th century fantasy.

It was in a style, which we would turn today, the chateauesque.

It was based upon the French chateaus of the Lura Valley with a great square tower with a pyramidal top on it.

Turrets and dormers stretching out across the structure.

All of course, executed in a very light pink New Hampshire granite.

So that it was, it was really I think for the late 19th century, a very powerful corporate statement that we as a railroad are here to stay.

This was an incredibly powerful, large scale, permanent kind of investment to make in a building.

And it also was a symbol of the importance of Portland as a rail crossroads.

(lively music) - [Narrator] In Bangor, Union Station was built in 1907.

The city had outgrown its other stations and a new station was built.

Though not as ornate Portland's, Union Station in Bangor was a magnificent building made of buff brick and slate and marble and oak with brand new electric lights.

It had a restaurant and a tower with a clock that rose 119 feet into the air.

The dedication in 1907 was an auspicious occasion with many notables from the city and from the Maine Central Railroad.

A reception was held and dinner was served in the station restaurant to the music of a 10 piece orchestra.

On the menu was Penobscot River Salmon with hollandaise sauce roast lamb, ladyfingers, strawberry ice cream, topped off with coffee and cigars and speeches.

Former Governor Henry B. Cleave said.

- [Voiceover] Mr. Toastmaster and Gentleman of the Board of Trade, when I am seeking after truth, I always come to Bangor, and it is a source of much satisfaction that I am permitted to be with you tonight and join with you in the dedication of Bangor's Union Station.

The hopes and expectations of years have been more than fully realized, and tonight, you celebrate the erection of a building, a Union Station, one of the best and most modern in all of New England.

- [Narrator] The next day, the trains rolled out of the new station.

And for over 50 years, the station served the transportation needs of thousands.

Royce Wheeler was assistant superintendent at Union Station in Bangor.

- I have a few memories of childhood of Union Station coming from Old to Bangor by train and getting off the train and walking up the platforms as we later learned, they were called train sheds up to this massive structure called Union Station, and then subsequently going into the big City of Vanguard up through Exchange Street.

I think probably the first time I saw it, it was the biggest building I'd ever seen in my life.

- [Narrator] Both train stations symbolized the beginnings and ends of lifetime journeys.

Almost everyone who lived with passenger trains remembers an important event that occurred in a train station.

In Portland, the train station was an important part of the life of the city.

(lively music) Inside Portland's Union Station was an elegant dining room.

A guide to Portland from the early 20th century described it.

- [Speaker] The large main dining room off from which is a dainty room for the use of private parties is finished in quartered oak.

The snow white linen and attractively spread tables are temptingly suggestive to the tired traveler of a carefully prepared meal served almost instantly.

And with the large force of experienced chefs and waiters, a small army can be served in a very few minutes.

(bright music) - [Narrator] There was the large waiting room with chandeliers and a large fireplace.

(lively music) It had news stands and fruit stands.

(lively music) The clock and the tower was essentially the same as that in London's Big Ben.

It had what was called a double three-legged gravity escapement.

It took almost 15 minutes and 133 cranks to wind it every Sunday morning.

It had a 1,500 pound weight that dropped almost 40 feet.

This elaborate system protected the clock's hands from the ice and snow by compensating for any extra weight.

And the time remained accurate throughout the winter months.

In Bangor, the clock tower was a landmark for many years.

John Mincher worked in the station.

- Well, that old clock up there was, it operated with weights like I think once every week or every two weeks, they went up and they had to pulley, cause down raise these weights, there were rocks in these baskets, and then the weight of those, the gravity would keep the clock running though for that same period of time.

- I was impressed more from the ground with the big clock than I was when I got up in the tower and found that the machinery of these tower clocks is really very basic, long shafts, cog, gears.

And the clock was operated by a system of weights that had to be wound once a week.

And my biggest disappointment probably about this was that the weights contained in the box where pieces of scrap iron and rocks.

I was really expecting something a little more exotic for a tower clock, but it did its job.

- [Narrator] During the two World Wars in this century, thousands of troops passed to the train stations in Portland and in Bangor.

♪ Oh, give me something to remember you by ♪ ♪ When you are far away from me, dear ♪ ♪ Some little something, meaning love can not die ♪ ♪ No matter where you chance to be ♪ ♪ Though I'll pray for you, night and day for you ♪ ♪ It will see me through like a charm ♪ ♪ Till you're returning (dramatic music) On December 22nd, 1942, this group of men left Bangor on the train to Fort Devens, Massachusetts.

These 31 young men were about to take the journey of a lifetime.

For some, this would be the last time they would see their hometown.

Fred Vadarmas remembers that day.

- It was a cold, cold winter day, December 22nd, 1942.

Well, I was supposed to report down there between six and 6:15 AM, and I was supposed to meet some guy that was gonna be in charge.

And I asked the draft, the guy at the registration board, I said, Gina Cricket, you know, can't you wait three days so I can have Christmas at home?

He says, "No, no."

He says, "You gotta get done there.

You know, this is war," he says, and we can't take our time.

- [Narrator] Frank O'Connell was there on that day as well.

His mother had packed him a box lunch and his father had taken him down to the station.

- I think we were all scared, and we all looking at one another, I think, and wonder what was all about where we were going, how we'd all gonna end up, you know?

Yeah.

51 years ago.

- Well, we pulled out of the station, it was quite a scene to see leaving you.

And, of course, you had mixed emotions, I guess I'll never see this again.

You didn't know where you was going, but as far as I remember, most of the guys that went with me came back.

- [Narrator] Many of these men were away from home for the first time.

And for them, the shock of a Christmas time departure was overwhelming.

- God, it was, it hung so heavy.

It hung so heavy.

I couldn't believe some of the guys was really sobbing in their bunk.

You know, it was one guy in that picture there.

And I couldn't believe 'cause he was a real tough guy.

You know, he was a street kid like myself and like some of the elders, you know?

And this guy was a real tough guy, and to see him crying like a baby in his bunk was really something.

I didn't cry, but I was, I was pretty down the dumps.

♪ I'll be home for Christmas ♪ You can plan on me ♪ Please have snow and mistletoe ♪ ♪ And presents on the tree ♪ Christmas eve will find me ♪ Where the love light gleams ♪ I'll be home for Christmas ♪ If only in my dreams - [Narrator] The war ended and the train brought them home.

- It was about three years, about three years to the day was January, January '45, I think it was.

It was miserable, cold.

And after being in the Pacific for three years.

Boy, that cold was really cutting.

It was so cold.

And it was just very exciting coming through towns, you know, like Herman and places like that.

Going through Waterville and getting closer and closer to Bangor was pretty exciting.

Quite emotional.

Quite a feeling.

- [Narrator] After the Second World War ended, a new era dawned across the country.

After nearly two decades of depression and war, people were ready to rebuild their lives.

A highway system was built and air travel became more accessible.

The writing was on the wall for passenger trains.

- In my opinion, the direct cause was the decision of the federal government and the state government.

Right after World War II, electing to build super highways, the interstate system.

The population of the United States having lived under gasoline rationing, and been deprived of travel at will found a total new freedom of getting out on the highway.

New cars became available, gasoline was plentiful, not terribly expensive by today's standards suddenly, and they enjoyed this freedom of going when they wanted to, where they wanted to, how they wanted to, and everyone who could.

And that was many, many thousands of people in this state purchased automobiles.

- [Narrator] The last run of engine 470 was in June of 1954.

A large crowd had gathered in Portland and witnessed the end of an era in train service.

The last run of the 470 to Bangor was met with mixed emotions from those who worked in the railroad.

Royce Wheeler of the Maine Central Railroad.

- If you were a working railroad man, the demise of steam locomotives left you with a kind of a hollow feeling from a nostalgic point of view, but it left you with a smile on your face.

If you were the fireman who had to shovel the cold into steam locomotives for diesels were much cleaner, much easier to work in, much more comfortable and that you could control the heat in the cab and they had windows that closed.

You weren't subjected to so much weather or so many drafts or so much dust.

(lively music) It was a big event.

It had been, it had been advertised.

And the rail fans from throughout the state and probably beyond the borders of the state had gathered.

And that train was photographed at every crossing and at every station between Portland and Vanguard, probably in both directions and from many locations for the same people before rail buffs have a way of doing this.

It was as I recall it, it was not a sunny day.

It was kind of a overcast cool gloomy day.

And that really was the type of day that it should have been for that final steam run.

It shouldn't have been a sunny day for it was the end of an era, and nature provided the setting for that.

(bright music) - [Narrator] The last run of the 470 may also have marked the beginning of the end of passenger trains in the state.

Over the next six years, profits declined and eventually it became impossible to continue passenger service.

Times were changing.

- And of course, very quickly, once passenger service was phased out around 1960, the Maine Central Railroad made the decision to start selling.

It's a lot of its real estate, particularly its passenger stations across the state.

The railroad was in financial difficulty in terms of the passions or service.

They were phasing it out in all because it wasn't paying.

And at the same time, the real estate would be a financial burden and economic burden as well.

And so as a result, you know, not only do you phase out the passenger service itself, but you also then dispose of the real estate property that's associated with it.

There's no longer a reason to keep it and to maintain it.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Both train stations closed and eventually were sold to developers.

- I guess down deep in my heart, I was hoping that the use would be found for it.

But because of the particular design of it and the amount of money that it would've taken to convert it into retail commercial space, I guess I really knew at that time that the eventual end was going to be demolishing of it.

That was the trend in those days unfortunately, urban renewal, knock it down.

And we were writing it right in an area of the city that an awful lot of that had been done.

And so it was, I guess it was a foregone conclusion that unless somebody came along with a lot of dollars, there was no hope for it standing.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] And with no use seen for either Union Station, the wrecking balls began to swing.

(dramatic music) On Thursday, August 31st, 1961, the Union Station Tower in Portland topple to the ground.

People lined the streets and wept.

- And, of course, this was, you know, tremendous blow to people in Portland because the station was, I think, as much as any other building in the city, the station meant more to people.

And it meant so much to people because it was a combination of the glory of its architecture and the fact that virtually everybody in Portland had very close, very deep personal associations with that building because it was a building through which everybody had passed during the course of their lives.

- Exactly, three months later, on Thursday, November 30th, 1961, the Union Station Tower in Bangor fell.

- One of my coworkers, Bud Spalding, and I sat in an automobile on Washington Street, just about on the condensing stream bridge, and watched the wrecking ball swing on the tower.

It was the end of a long standing era.

It was kind of a sad situation.

We didn't want it to happen, but we didn't have the knowledge or the power or the money to keep it from happening.

So we were somewhat resigned to the fate that was inevitable.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Today, on the sites of both stations sit small shopping centers.

The legacy of the destruction of these two buildings is a lasting one.

- And I think that the effect and the lesson of Union Station has really been a tremendously lasting one in Portland.

It is a building which in a sense continues to haunt us more than 30 years after its demolition, I think more than any other building.

It continues to be the symbol of the architectural heritage of Portland.

And it continues to prompt us to become as active as possible in being aware of that heritage and working to preserve it.

(dramatic music) (lively music) - [Narrator] In 1922, Charles Adams opened a gas station on Route Two in Carmel.

Nothing fancy, just a gas station with a couple of bears on chains out front.

But three years later so the story goes, a Russian immigrant by the name of Harry Wise and his wife Lizzy, took it over and opened Auto Rest Park.

- [Dick] He more than any other person was Auto Rest Park.

- [Narrator] Dick Shaw of the Bangor Daily News has researched Auto Rest Park extensively.

- Harry Wise died when I was just a little kid.

I never knew him.

But through talking with people, I feel like I know this incredibly warm, generous person.

I call him the Walt Disney of Carmel Maine.

- [Narrator] Auto Rest Park was a place where you could stop traveling in your Model T get a bite to eat, and take in some of the amusements that Harry and Lizzy Wise so carefully constructed.

(lively music) In the restaurant, you could get a three deck sandwich of ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and butter for 25 cents.

Or how about a hot chicken sandwich with potato and gravy for 35 cents.

If you were really strapped for cash, then maybe a fried egg sandwich for 15 cents or a Honeymoon, just lettuce for a dime.

Top that off with a North Pole Highball made of sparkling ginger rail with phosphate, lemon and maraschino cherry.

When you were through eating, you could enjoy yourself with some of the attractions at Auto Rest Park.

There was the merry-go-round, the automatic swings, the bear cages, seesaws, and of course, Bella the Baboon.

(lively music) Laurus Hosden ran the merry-go-round.

- I started working for Auto Rest Park, summer of 1946.

Merry-go-round was kind of a fun job.

In the weekends, it would be real, real busy.

The merry-go-round were full all the time.

I had somebody be selling tickets and I'd be running the merry-go-round.

If it wasn't too busy, I'd be selling tickets and running the merry-go-round.

(lively music) - [Narrator] In the 1930s, Auto Rest Park really flourished.

People came from miles around to spend a Sunday with their families or to dance the night away to the sounds of a big band in a large tent.

(lively music) - Tent, I think was put up around 36 at 37.

It was a huge place where people, bands played, jazz bands.

But I think around that time, it didn't last very long 'cause a good strong wind came up when that it just blew the whole thing down.

So that's when he took stock of tents in climates like Maine.

And I think he later build a big permanent wooden roller skating ring.

- [Narrator] Nat Diamond and his orchestra, a local group were regulars at Auto Rest Park in the 1940s.

- We played every Wednesday and every Saturday.

And we played from eight to 12 both nights and just for quite a while.

And the audiences were, you know, we had 1,500 on Saturday and close to a thousand on Wednesdays every week.

- Older people who remember it from it's heyday, remember just hundreds of cars.

I mean, just parked all the way down Route Two on both sides of the road and with a couple of traffic cops directing traffic.

And another story is that it was, the place was so hopping on a like a Friday afternoon in July that they would have a beer tap in the restaurant and they'd just turn that beer tap on and just put one beer glass under another, under it all afternoon without ever turning it off, yeah.

- And then name bands would come in.

We were like the house band too.

Like we played a band of music with my colleague with Buddy Rich and his band.

They would play two or three sets and we would play two or three sets and they would play two or three sets.

And that was really good, you know, it was fun.

(lively music) - [Narrator] There were constantly new things added to the park.

The owners put out a weekly newspaper called the Zoo-S-News.

It chronicled many of the weekly events and happenings.

Politicians visited Auto Rest Park.

There were broadcasts on WABI radio from Auto Rest Park.

Ms. Maine of 1937 was crowned there.

There was Children's Theater, school children were entertained there.

Some of them walked away with brand new bicycles.

Everyone got an ice cream cone.

- Everybody talks about the last day or the last week of school going out there and getting just lavished with all kinds of gifts and courtesy of Harry Wise, you know, ice cream cones.

And then they'd want to come back, you know, a week or two later with their family and spend real money, you know, but.

(lively music) - [Narrator] One of the more famous incidents at Auto Rest Park occurred in 1937, Al Brady, Clarence Lee Shaffer Jr., and James Dalhover, also known as the Brady Gang, spent there last night on earth in the cabins at Auto Rest Park.

Al Brady was public enemy number one and was being pursued by J. Edgar Hoover, FBI for the grizzly machine gun murder of a state trooper in Indiana.

- That did it more than anything that they'd killed two other people before that.

But this was the big, the big crime that really elevated them to national status.

There were in Bangor to buy the one weapon that they had longed for, that is a Tommy gun, which was the trademark of Al Capone and John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, and never got one.

So they decided for some reason to drive to Bangor Maine to go to Dakin's Sporting Goods, which sold among other things, weapons.

- [Narrator] Georgia Higgins and her mother were chamber chambermaids at the time.

- He stopped there and to see if they needed clean, you know, clean towels or their bed changed.

And they said, "No, they were fine," if I remember right.

I didn't realize we did pay were criminals, gangs us.

I said, gee.

(Georgia laughs) - They spent a pretty quiet night there.

I believe they had dinner, or at least two of them did at the Auto Rest restaurant.

And I think probably just played poker, you know, and then smoked millions of cigarettes, if you believe.

Talked to the people that cleaned the cabin the next day.

And also I heard that they never really turned back the bed clothes of the beds.

They were just so paranoid about being found even in a little place like Camel so.

- [Narrator] The next day, Columbus Day 1937, the three men drove into Bangor, pick up the Thompson submachine gun and straight into an FBI trap.

Al Brady and Clarence Lee Shaffer were gunned down by federal agents in the streets of Bangor in a legendary gun battle.

- They sent James Dalhover out of the car into the store and asked, actually, he turned out to be an FBI man who was posing as as a Dakin store clerk.

He said, "Where's that Tommy gun I ordered last week."

And he growled, "Where are you pals?"

And Dalhover sneered at him.

And just look at him, I mean the blink of an eye.

Colonel Walls, who was a very good man on his feet fast, and a sharp shooter, had a gun out of his pocket, split second and clogged him over the face, broke his nose, his glasses, and Dalhover sat up, "They're out in the car, they're out in the car."

And that's when this trap, I'm talking men up in windows and men in back beside the car and alleyways were just converged on the car.

But just a second before that, Shaffer had gotten out of the car to see where Dalhover was instead of firing through the window of Dakin.

And they let him have it from both sides.

He was resisting arrest after all.

They let him have it from both sides.

And he just was practically cut into by just an incredible amount of talking 25 bullets that he took.

Brady was in a position, no public enemy number one would wanna find himself in alone, in the backseat of his stolen Buick with an arsenal that did him absolutely no good on the backseat of the car.

He was on the passenger side.

They ordered him out, the FBI men did on onto the street side on the driver's side.

And he said, "I'll come, I'll come.

Please don't shoot me."

And they opened the door for him very kindly, let him out.

And as he got out, he started firing through the, through the pocket of his over coat and actually shredded the cigarettes in one of the G-mans coats, pockets and nicked his holster, and that's when he was resisting arrest too.

So they, (Dick laughs) they let him have it, and he died pretty much instantly.

♪ When I die, when I die, please burry me ♪ ♪ In a box back home and a Stetson hat ♪ ♪ Put a $373 gold piece on my watch chain ♪ ♪ So the boys will know I died standing pat ♪ - Leo Wise was the only, the only child of Harry and Lizzy Wise, they were very much of a threesome.

Leo's wife worked on the premises too.

Leo managed the Auto Rest when he got up, I think, and it was 30s, 20s and 30s.

He was groomed to take it over.

But Leo had an untimely death in February of 1946.

He was wintering in Florida and died.

He drowned.

His setting out to go on a fishing expedition in his car, backed over a 30 foot docker cliff, he drowned before his friends could get him out.

Harry and Lizzy were down there at the time, and I think they were devastated and sold the Auto Rest.

(dramatic music) After Harry sold it, not after the war, there's a succession of people.

They had it for like three, four or five years, and they sold it, you know, presumably because it was a lot of work and maybe a little less lucrative as the '50s and early '60s through on.

The restaurant burned for huge incendiary blaze.

And it was a just a devastating, you know, blow to a place that was slipping a little bit anyway financially, and it was never rebuilt.

I don't believe it was the place that everybody remembers from the '30s and '40s, the restaurant and the place where you lined up to get ice cream.

And it was kind of a symbolic, if you look at the pictures of the night sky lit up with the flames of the the Auto Rest Park, eat the big letters eat on the roof.

And that was, that was really the beginning of the end of Auto Rest was when the restaurant burned.

(dramatic music) - People's around here now most all the people now don't even remember it.

Most people be too young to remember Auto Rest unless they're older people.

I called because it kind of outgrew its era.

Back at the time when it was, before World War II and right after World War II, it was the only amusement place there was in the radius of a hundred miles.

I'll be anywhere in the state of Maine.

But after a while, the trend changed and more things began to come up for entertainment, more people went to the beaches and more entertainment was coming up.

It faded away and eventually it closed.

- I've heard more people say that they made mention how much they missed Auto Rest Park.

And they'd ask me that, Georgia, don't you miss Auto, I says, "I guess, boy."

- [Narrator] Auto Rest Park is now an auto salvage yard.

But people have many happy memories of it.

- Part of the the fun is just kind of looking at a place like that through rose colored glasses and remembering what you wanna remember and forgetting about the mosquitoes and the flies and maybe a bad meal you might have had or something, or some unpleasant experience.

It was a generally used to fun place to go.

(bright music) (logo chiming) (lively music) (energetic music) - [Narrator] 100 years ago in the late 19th century, a small town in Southern Maine could boast of one of the country's great resorts.

The Poland Spring House in Poland Spring was the summer home of the wealthy from around the United States.

Its furnishings were elegant, its food was delicious and the service was superb.

It had a golf course, a stable of horses, huge parlors, tennis courts, and even some private baths.

But this story begins a hundred years earlier with the Ricker family, who owned and operated the resort during its heyday.

- [David] The Rickers moved here in 1794, and soon after that, people began appearing at their doorstep, looking for places to stay.

- [Narrator] David Richards is writing a book about Poland Spring.

- So from the 1790s when they move here, people and what was known as the Mansion House.

I think the official date that they gave to the the Mansion House opening as an inn is 1797.

Both, it was the Ricker's household, and then they were also taking guests as well.

- [Narrator] Perhaps the small inn that the Ricker's owned would've remained a tiny place if it weren't for the so-called discovery of Poland Spring Water.

The legend goes like this.

Wentworth Ricker discovered a spring on his land, drank from it, and was cured of a bad case of gravel.

In 1844, Hiram Ricker found that he too was cured of a sour stomach from drinking the water.

- In this particular day, they had forgotten to bring some of the flavorings that they put in the water.

Ginger was one, I think molasses was another.

So they just had to drink the water straight.

And Hiram noticed that his stomach ailments were subsiding after he had drunk this water, straight the spring water straight.

And for a couple of days he did this.

He didn't put the ginger, didn't put any molasses on it, just drank the spring water straight.

And on the basis of that, he concluded that this water must have medicinal properties.

- [Narrator] Hiram Ricker then called on Dr. E. Clark of Portland, who supposedly prescribed it for one of his patients suffering from kidney disease.

A testimonial letter from Dr. Clark appeared in a brochure for the Poland Spring House.

- [Voiceover] He was very pale, much emaciated, suffering severe pain in the region of the kidneys and bladder.

During this time, he had been treated without success by one of our most distinguished physicians.

He received some medicine from me and I advised him to take the Poland Spring Water on the second morning after taking the water, he called me in haste, being frightened at the sudden change in his condition.

His convalescence was rapid and complete.

In this case of alarming and severe disease of the kidneys and bladder.

I regarded the Poland Spring Water as the curative agent, E. Clark, MD.

(lively music) - [Narrator] In 1876, Hiram Ricker and his three sons, Alvan Bolster, Hiram the second, and Edward Payson Ricker built the Poland Spring House as a great resort that featured the Healthful Poland Spring water.

- There was a tradition in America of locating resorts near Mineral Springs, the most famous being Saratoga Springs in New York, which starts, I think in the 1780s, 1790s, when they build the Poland Spring Hotel, they have a partner in along with them.

So they didn't have the financial wherewithal to be building this on their own.

And there's are stories that even after they've built the building, they didn't have enough money to furnish it.

And that Edward Ricker, one of the sons of Hiram had to go into Lewiston and essentially get people to sell him furniture on credit.

- He went to three different furniture stores and they wouldn't give him credit.

And he went to a fourth one, he persisted and went on, went to a fourth one and he bought a few beds and furniture from them.

And when he left he said, you will always have our furniture order from now on.

- [Narrator] Katherine Lenahan is the niece of Edward Payson Ricker.

- [Katherine] Uncle Ed proved to have a great deal of business ability and he took over for his father who was a dreamer.

Uncle Hiram also had business ability and as they went on, Uncle Ed turned to Uncle Hiram to run the spring.

- The three sons were go getters.

- [Narrator] George Ricker is the grandson of Alvan Bolster Ricker.

- The three men had different positions.

Hiram was the salesman, he and Edward Payson, EP, where the salesman, my grandfather ran the place.

- [Narrator] Hiram Ricker's idea was a great success.

And by the 1890s, the Poland Spring House was growing exponentially.

♪ Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do ♪ ♪ Once you answer I'm half crazy ♪ ♪ All for the love of you ♪ It won't be a stylish marriage ♪ ♪ I can't afford a carriage ♪ But you'll look sweet ♪ Upon the seat ♪ Of a bicycle built for two Major renovations had made the hotel capable of housing 450 guests and all of their servants.

- The idea behind these resorts that the urban upper middle class could get away for the summer.

So they weren't coming here for a weekend, they weren't coming here for a couple weeks.

They were coming for a whole summer.

Quite often what would happen is the wife would come with the children.

The husband would still need to conduct his business in the city.

So he may only be able to come for a couple of weekends, for a couple of weeks.

He wouldn't be able to stay the whole summer.

So the wife would quite often have maid come along to help take care of the children.

Many of the families that came would bring chauffeurs with them so that they wanted to travel while they were here.

They'd have someone available to do that for them.

Eventually it got to the point where so many servants were being brought that the Ricker family built another hotel just to accommodate the servants.

(lively music) The 1890s seemed to be beginning of its a heyday.

By the 1890s, it's a very well established resort and it's one of the leading resorts America.

By this time, the Rickers are claiming that they're selling more water from their spring than Saratoga Springs is this, this resort area that's been in existence much longer than Poland Spring, but by the 1890s, the Rickers have surpassed them.

(lively music) - [Narrator] Poland Spring was known across America as a great resort.

The Rickers even opened an office on Broadway in New York.

In 1893, following the Chicago World's Fair.

The Rickers purchased the Maine State Building, Maine's exhibition hall at the fair.

They dismantled it, put it on a train and reassembled it on the grounds of the resort.

It was used as a library and art gallery and is still standing today.

People came from all over to get away from the crowded, smelly cities to take in the air, drink the water, and enjoy themselves.

- Before 1901, it's primary, it's almost exclusively by train.

And you would can make connections from most of the major cities in the United States to Portland by a train.

Or you could also come by steamship to Portland.

And then from Portland, you could either take the Maine Central Railroad of the Grand Trunk Railroad to Danville Junction, which is now outside of Auburn.

That gets you to Danville Junction.

And the way you got from there.

The six miles here to Poland Spring is by stage coach.

- [Narrator] When the guests arrived, they would find the hotel itself as elegant as it could possibly be.

There were acres of grounds, mile long boardwalk, billiard rooms, music halls, and elegant furnishings.

The golf course was one of the first in America and was a popular pastime for the guests.

The covered porches were a place to be seen and to view the presidential range of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

The guests represented the most respected citizens in America.

- There are names that today wouldn't mean that much to us, but during the day, they would've been of leading businessmen of cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago.

And every once in a while you would get a very famous person like member of the Rockefeller family coming to stay.

But the most wealthy Americans tended to stay at places like Bar Harbor, Newport, Rhode Island.

And they had the wealth to have their own cottages, their own estate.

They wouldn't have stayed at a resort hotel where they needed to stay with other people.

- [Narrator] The Ricker sons were master marketers.

They produced extensive catalogs and brochures that were full of testimonial letters about the resort and about the water.

- [Voiceover] Washington, D.C,.

September 6th, 1881, send two more cases Poland to the president at Long Branch, told Mr. Ricker, the president will drink no other water.

James G. Blaine.

- [Voiceover] Hartford, Connecticut, December 19th, 1894.

Gentlemen, for the last six years, I have tried from time to time, the waters from the principal springs in the country.

As a table water from which I have received a conscious and obvious benefit.

My preference is decidedly in favor of Poland Spring Water.

I have found it pure, wholesome, and saluatory in its effects.

Yours truly, Rodney Dennis, Secretary Travelers Insurance Company.

- [Voiceover] Mount McGregor, New York, June 22nd, 1885, Send me a barrel of Poland Water by express as soon as possible, U.S. Grant.

(lively music) - [Narrator] But the Rickers did not rely totally on testimonials to sell Poland Spring Water.

- In time, scientific proof becomes important.

And so what they do is they have the water chemically analyzed, have chemists analyze it for them to ensure to people, ensure to customers that this is quote "pure water," which is interesting, this idea of pure water.

Pure water would be hydrogen and oxygen.

And it's not pure water, it's water that has minerals in it, but they get chemists to verify what chemicals are in it, which are supposed to have medicinal properties.

(lively music) - [Narrator] Katherine Louise Lenahan, niece of the Rickers first came to Poland Spring in the summer around 1906 or 1907.

- I remember it was a long train ride from Springfield.

We had to change trains in Boston, of course.

I loved the Mansion House.

It was had of course enlarged a great deal since 1795, '96 when it was built.

I had a cousin, Uncle Hiram's daughter, was only a year older than I.

And we too went around and I learned every crack and corner and crevices of the Mansion House.

And a good deal of the time when I was wandering around, Sandy went with me, the goat that was the mascot of the mansion, of the Mansion House.

And he used to love the sugar on the window sill that the girls kept there for their morning break of coffee.

He didn't go in, but he'd reach over the window sill and help himself to the sugar bowl.

He was always with the guests as he was on the lawn.

And that picture with me and came by, everyone was very fond of him.

When he died at 16, I will say about his head was mounted and it was in the office of the Mansion House.

The food was delicious.

(Katherine laughs) My aunt, for breakfast had her fruit and she had to eat chicken boiled potato and sliced cucumber.

I had fruit, fruits bowls, bacon, rolls, and coffee or milk.

Cereals were served, eggs any style, sausage, lamb chops were always on the breakfast menu, and pancakes, donuts and coffee.

(bright music) My cousin that I spoke of that was my age, and I decided that we, the family thought it was time we played golf, and I, she had a governess, and so the governess went with us.

We had an instructor because we were learning how to play golf.

We each had our own caddy to carry our golf clubs.

And then my aunt decided that golf was quite dangerous and she hired a bell boy that was off duty to go each time to watch the balls that we didn't get hit by somebody else's ball to keep his eye out for the balls, and with that picture, I very soon took up tennis.

(Katherine laughs) (lively music) - [Narrator] In the early 1900s, a strange new mechanical device began to appear at Poland Spring, the automobile.

It marked the first small rumblings of the end of the Ricker's business.

The long lazy summers were no longer commonplace for the guests.

They now had the freedom to travel more easily and their stays at the resort were shorter.

The Rickers also began to diversify the business.

They were involved with grand hotels at Mt.

Kineo on Moosehead Lake, the Samoset at Rockland and others in the Southern United States.

- Now what that did is it did diversify the resort business for them, but it also got them overextended.

They had to borrow too much money to be part of these different businesses.

And I've seen a letter from Edward Ricker's financial advisor in about 1913, warning him even at that point in 1913, that he's $600,000 in debt and that he's not even gonna be able to pay off the interest on his debt, nevermind the principle, and that he better get to work on paying off his debt.

So that's 1913.

The hotel and the resort, the bottling companies seem to be going along fine into the 1920s.

And then it's gonna be the depression that finally pushes the business over the edge.

- I remember in the '30s, the walks down to the lake, the wooden walks, they was starting to be patched and pretty soon they took 'em away because they just couldn't keep them up.

And you could just see things were slowly deteriorating.

- [Narrator] Coupled with the depression, with the deaths of the Ricker brothers.

Edward Payson died in 1928, and within five years, Hiram and Alvan were gone and their wisdom and knowledge of the business went with them.

Finally, Poland Spring was bankrupt and the property was sold.

(dramatic music) Over the next 40 years, the resort has sold to a series of people and has brief and strange moments of fame.

Sonny Liston trains for his fight with Cassius Clay.

It becomes a job course center for inner city youth.

And in the early '70s in a final oddity, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi teaches transcendental meditation there.

Finally, on July 4th, 1975, the Poland Spring House burns in a spectacular fire.

(dramatic music) - [Katherine] And I thought that I was very glad that my great uncles and aunts had died before that happened.

That was my first reaction.

How tragic it would be for them to know that they'd put so much into a thing and that it had gone up in flames.

- [Narrator] Today a resort still exists at Poland Spring, but almost everything that Hiram Ricker and his sons built is gone.

- I felt that I learned manners and I learned gracious living, feel that the whole thing was a tremendous education to me, to be in such an interesting place that was so much of that era.

(lively music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] On April 15th, 1912 in the North Atlantic, the greatest ocean liner in the world, the Titanic slams into an iceberg.

The world is stunned by the news.

The story is so momentous, it steals the front page from the opening of Bangor's newest attraction.

(dramatic music) The city is in a state of excitement about the new Bijou Theater.

The opening night on April 18th, 1912, just a few days after the sinking of the Titanic is a stunning success, the Bangor Daily News.

- [Voiceover] The formal opening of Bangor new theater took place on Wednesday night, not intended primarily as a society event or anything of the kind.

Society yet took a vivid almost solicitous interest.

Long lines automobiles were drawn up on Exchange Street and for an hour their occupants streamed beneath the blazing circles and pyramids of lights that make the street as bright as day.

It was a remarkable scene in the big auditorium, big yet with a skillfully conveyed sense of coziness and intimacy.

A splendid audience, brilliant as ever, was gathered at a festival first night, now set a mid surroundings of old rows and ivory of beautiful paintings and massive plaster relief.

(lively music) - [Narrator] Built by Edward H. Blake, a Bangor millionaire.

The theater was perhaps the most elegant building in the city.

It included chandeliers, paintings and luxurious plaster work.

The Bijou's manager, Stephen Bogart, had convinced Blake to build a new Bijou on the site of the Gem Theater.

Although the name Bijou was already on it, the renovation would create an entirely new theater to support "Big Time Vaudeville" on the Keith-Albee Vaudeville Circuit.

Benny Reel is a new Vaudeville performer.

- The term itself means ballet of song in French or describes a valley in France where minstrels would hang out quite a lot.

And so when it came over and it was Americanized, it came into rather Vaudeville it came out to Vaudeville.

There was all different levels of houses, Vaudeville houses.

There was small time, small, medium time, big time, and the larger ones, which were big time houses were maybe a thousand across the United States, of which the Keith-Albee Circuit was considered to be one of the the big time houses.

(lively music) - [Narrator] A typical bill for the Bijou Theater would include singers and dancers, comedians and jugglers and animal acts, as well as the latest silent picture.

The Bijou had two to three shows of Vaudeville a day, often for 20 cents.

The box office was open from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM, and the show ran continuously in the evening from seven to 10:45.

It was considered a palace house.

- A lot of people that attended Vaudeville didn't have a lot of money.

So palace, what the concept there was to use elegant drapes to do everything so that the tapestry on the walls, the ornate configurations of the balconies and the chairs and all that sort of thing.

So when people stepped into them, you've got a whole other environment.

I think it was the Keith-Albee circuit that even went to the extreme of when one of the palaces opened in New York.

They silver plated all of the coal shovels in the basement and they had the people that were shoveling the coal dressed as butlers and a red, red carpet that came in there.

And they would run tours down through the basement to let people see them putting in coal.

With silver plated shovels to every element of the whole theater was to indicate class and a sense of royalty, wealth, because it was the opposite of where most people were, and they just sort of of enjoyed reveling in that.

- [Narrator] Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward F. Albee at the time are two of the most powerful men in show business.

They transformed the American theater into the most popular form of entertainment in the early 20th century.

One of the hallmarks of the Keith-Albee circuit was a squeaky clean show.

It is said B.F. Keith stationed a Sunday school teacher in the back of the auditorium to watch for hells or dams.

- His real forte was he was a real showman.

And by that I mean he saw the total picture, He saw the necessity to make the outside of the theater really attractive to make anybody attract, feel comfortable walking in there as their own place.

A sense of majesty and elegance treated everyone as though they were a king.

And so that the whole event of going to a theater like that would've been a just a magnificent experience.

It would've been like going to a miniature theme park.

- [Narrator] Vaudeville in the Keith-Albee circuit was so family oriented that the Catholic Diocese of Boston loaned B.F. Keith the money to build Boston's colonial theater.

But B.F. Keith and Edward Albee were hardly saints when it came to business.

The two controlled a chain of theaters from coast to coast and ruled them with an iron hand.

Albee set up his own booking agency to book acts exclusively in his theaters.

An act could appear in a Keith-Albee theater only if it was signed with Albee's agency.

The agency took 5% of the acts salary plus a 5% fee.

And since Albee had exclusive rights to his performers, he began to cut their salaries.

The performers either took what they were given or were out of work.

Control was total.

(lively music) On January 14th, 1914, the Opera House, Bangor legitimate theater burned and the Bijou became the home of serious drama.

(energetic music) A great Shakespearean actor of the day, Robert Mantell appeared with his company for three days.

In three days, he played "Hamlet," "Macbeth" "King Lear" and Shylock for a matinee performance of "The Merchant of Venice."

An advertisement for his performance claimed.

- [Voiceover] Mr. Mantell is the only actor since Booth and Forest who has dared so much as attempt.

The role of King Lear is opening Bill declared by many Shakespearean scholars unactable.

Mr. Mantell plays Shylock with a wonderful sympathy that has made of the money lender of vivid reality.

Mr. Mantell's Hamlet ripened by years of intense devotion to art is considered his masterpiece of elocution.

- [Voiceover] To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food.

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

Rage!

Blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?

Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight?

or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw.

- [Voiceover] A large and appreciative audience attended the presentation of "Hamlet" by Robert Mantell at the Bijou Theater Tuesday evening.

Nothing too laudatory can be said of the work of Mr. Mantell in this role.

Robert Mantell may well be called the Prince of Actors.

For his acting contains an element rarely found nowadays.

He lives and breathes his part and carries with his bearing a devotion and love for his work apparent to his audience.

The plays of Shakespeare can be as greatly enjoyed as any of the modern dramas and operas as long as there is a Mantell to portray them.

- [Narrator] Along with Vaudeville were movies.

These side shows were secondary entertainment to the live performances.

They would soon become the main attraction.

Silent classics with Mary Pickford.

Charlie Chaplin and Marie Dressler were presented along with the latest jugglers and escape artists.

Francis River remembers the silent days.

- My mother took me to see "Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde."

I think I was six years old and the movie was with John Barrymore.

He's got the hell on me.

I didn't wanna see another movie.

(Francis laughs) - [Narrator] But he saw many more movies in the next three quarters of a century.

Francis was just 13 years old when he learned to operate a projector.

He would later become one of the last projectionist at the Bijou.

- One projector, no motors on them, they have the crank them.

And 10 to the arc lamp besides, feed the arc lamp.

Now the reels only run at that time around 10 minutes.

So every 10 minutes, you'd slide your lamp also and show a slide on the screen while you were threading up and getting ready for maybe reel two or three.

- One crank of the handle.

Put 16 frames of film through the projector.

One second of screen time for silent movies.

- But you had to have a constant rotation of your hand on the crank.

So this time, I get tired, and you this one, keeping in sync.

Rewind with this one.

(Francis laughs) 'Cause you had your rewind, the right side of you.

- [Narrator] As movies became more and more popular, they signaled the beginning of the end of the old Vaudeville.

The Keith-Albee circuit was feeling the pressure and needed to sell off theaters outside of New York, and so they sold the Bijou.

In the 1920s, the Bijou changed hands several times until it came under the control of Cornelius J. Russell.

Cornelius Connie Russell and his son Cornelius Jr., would manage the Bijou for the next half century and were prominent citizens in the city.

Even though the Big Time Vaudeville circuits were declining and movies were becoming more and more popular, the live performances continued.

- In the spring, they would stop the movies and start 'em again in the fall.

But during the summer they had the carol players and they had, they would change twice a week, three days, one play, and three days the last three days of the week.

And in those days, you know, there were no Sunday movies.

It was only legalized in Maine in 1939.

- [Narrator] But eventually the movies went out and the Bijou spent the rest of its days as one of Bangor's premier movie houses.

Throughout the golden age of Hollywood, the Bijou showed many classics and was one of the anchors of a bustling Exchange Street in Bangor.

Bud Levin worked next to the Bijou at the Bangor Daily News.

- It was so different than today.

You would be met, for example, against the back wall of the theater and the usher with flashlight with a scotch till you see.

And it was done courteously and there was no putting your feet up on the next guy seat.

None of this business because they wouldn't tolerate it.

It had a balcony upstairs and you avoided that seat up there.

The downstairs was, yeah, I wouldn't call it palacio, but it was beautifully appointed.

The curtain that was slid apart as the movie came on was a beautiful thing to see.

And the seats were cushiony, very comfortable.

And the whole atmosphere was one that made you want to go back to the theater.

(lively music) - [Dick] I remember going there as a kid, I mainly remember lining up on Saturday mornings to see, oh gosh, some of the greatest Disney movies, you know.

- [Narrator] Dick Shaw is a local writer and historian.

- We saw "Swiss Family Robinson."

We saw "Old Yeller."

The best one and the one that that I remember most as being the tearjerker, power excellence was Hayley Mills in "Pollyanna."

"Pollyanna" got some sort of debilitating disease polio or something and she overcame that.

And we'd line way back up to State Street to see these movies and we'd wait over an hour to get a good seat.

And I remember some Saturday mornings kind of, or afternoons being, having to put up with some of the, some of the characters on Exchange Street, you know, going into this palace, this movie palace.

And I remember one guy was just kind of the quintessential old Bangor character and he had an ear that was, I think he'd been in a brawl the night before.

And he had an ear that was sliced down.

He looked like a prize fighter, you know?

And he was working the crowd, you know, asking for money.

And we couldn't get into this, the escape of the Bijou fast enough, the solitude of this place.

- [Narrator] After the days of Vaudeville, the Bijou thrived as a movie house.

It showed news reels, features, and cartoons.

And it was a hangout for local school kids.

Liz Ash was one of them.

- I don't remember the first time going, but I remember practically living there, every Saturday.

That was one of the things that we looked forward to for our 50 cents.

We could go down there to the movies and watch the movie and the popcorn.

I think we looked most forward to the popcorn.

I can remember sitting in my first Elvis movie in the front row screaming my head off.

And so I kind of remember the Bijou as if we really wanted to see the movie, we sat downstairs.

But if we weren't really sure whether we wanted to see the movie or not, we sat in the balcony.

So a lot of the couples ended up in the balcony during some of the movies.

- I remember the mystery of the mistake of what you might say if on either side of the proscenium of the big stage and the screen with these boxes.

And I always wondered as a little kid, who sat in these boxes, I mean were they always empty?

There was always empty whenever I was there.

- [Narrator] The Bijou continue to make memories through the '60s and into the '70s.

But urban renewal was changing the shape of Exchange Street and the Bijou's days were numbered.

Finally, it was sold to make way for a bank.

- I remember more than anything that it was this island, you know, almost everything around it had been, had fallen victim to urban renewal.

Some of them were actually private demolition projects.

But I remember seeing it from all directions, looking down the Exchange Street and up and from the rear and thinking how sad it was.

There was this huge, you know wall and back where all the fly space was, which is quite visible from the stream.

And every day seeing a little more of it, a little more of it, and after a while all that was standing was just, you know, part of the screen.

And just thinking of all the memories and all the memories my mother used to talk about too, who grew up in Bangor.

- I can remember that I, it was in this 1973, and I remember feeling kind of a sickness in my stomach 'cause by then a lot of the buildings in Bangor were starting to be torn down.

And I really felt kind of a sickness because I felt a piece of me was being torn down.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Some of the remnants of the plaster work still remain, like these chair ups that hung in the auditorium.

They are silent witnesses to everything that ever happened there.

From "Vaudeville" to "Old Yeller," "Hamlet," to "Birth of a Nation."

They are some of what remains of the Bijou.