The Kennebunkport Historical Society is celebrating the decade of the 1920s this month. All my THROWBACK THURSDAY posts in July will include Kennebunkport pictures and events from the 1920s.

1920

The decade started out with a bang. On foggy January 1, 1920, two three-masted schooners, Charles H. Trickery and Mary E. Olys, got tangled up together on the rocks near Goat Island Light. Holes were punctured in both hulls. The Chas H Trickey was later refloated but the Mary E Olys was a total loss.

Two weeks later the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution went into effect, making it illegal in all the United States to manufacture, import, or sell alcoholic beverages. Maine was the first state to adopt a law against the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors in 1851. By then the Kennebunks had been dry for almost 20 years. I’ll save my Kennebunks Prohibition stories for next Thursday afternoon at the Nott House when I host the Tea & Tales tea party.

Horses were raced on Gooch’s Beach in 1920. Margaret Strong, The Kennebunk Beach Bathtub Lady, had her wedding at St Ann’s on Sept 7, 1920. The women of the Kennebunks voted in their first presidential election in 1920.

1921

Freighter Wandby shipwrecked near Walker’s Point on March 9, 1921. Artist Louis Norton was on hand with his pastel box to capture the scene. Eastern Star was renamed Kennebunk Star in 1921. Artist Abbott Graves painted the familiar Martin Pring painting for the Louis T. Graves Memorial Library in 1921.

1922

Kennebunkport Boatbuilder, Clement Clark built Booth Tarkington’s second motorboat, Zantu, in 1922.

I hope you will join me for Tea & Tales at the Nott House next Thursday afternoon at 4pm to learn about the Kennebunks’ own rumrunners, bootleggers, high speed car chases, liquor agents, “waterboats,” and hooch rackets. #kennebunkport