Category: History

Kudos to L. Blake Baldwin of Video Creations in Kennebunk for converting this 16mm film from our collection. It was produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after the Maine Fire of October 1947 to warn folks to prevent forest fires, “It happened in Maine so don’t let it happen to you.” Keep an eye...

“I was awakened from a sound sleep and saw this figure of a Quaker lady surrounded by a gray haze. She glided by the foot of the bed and went out the door,” recalled musical star Jane Morgan’s good friend Muriel Pierce to a reporter in the mid-1960s. The newspaper man and his photographer had...

Did you ever wonder why Spring Street in Kennebunkport is so named? It was the way to the freshwater spring that stood along Mast Cove between The Village Baptist Church and the White Columned Nott House. Its location is clearly indicated on both the 1856 map and the 1872 map of Kennebunkport. That spring was...

World War II veterans Wesley Boynton and Morse Haithwaite performed in the Kennebunks for the first time in 1946 when their friend Robert Currier invited them to appear at his Kennebunkport Playhouse. Their performance was so well received that they returned several times that season to perform at the Olympian Club on Temple St. Starting...

The Municipal Building on Elm St is cramped and outdated. The town employees are giving tours of the building this week to show taxpayers the condition of our 1960 Town Offices. I thought this might be a good time to talk about the various Town Halls in Kennebunkport’s history. Cape Porpoise was originally the center...

I love this view of Dock Square shared with us by Cecil Benson, Jr. It must have been taken between 1933 and 1942. Benson’s can be seen here at the far right where Alisson’s stands now. Cecil wrote, “This is the restaurant that Dad [Cecil Benson, Sr.] and the family ran during the summer from...

The first picture I’m sharing today shows The Kennebunk Green as it was in 1927. Henry Parsons donated the land at the corner of Main and Fletcher Streets to Kennebunk for a Civil War Memorial. The Civil War Memorial Statue was unveiled there on October 24, 1908. The small Revolutionary War era ships cannon on...

We have probably all heard the warnings about the hurricane that may threaten our coast this weekend. I worry about potential flooding and beach erosion. I can’t help but think about the hundreds of shipwrecks at rest under our beaches and along our rocky shores that might make an appearance in the wake of a...

When someone calls to ask me to help them learn more about their old Kennebunkport house, the first thing I do is to look at the 1856 York County Atlas Wall Map, Sanford Everts & Co 1872 York County Atlas Map, and our handmade WWII Kennebunkport Warden’s Map of their neighborhood to learn who lived...

A lovely new shop, La La Luna has opened in the very old building on Ocean Ave at the edge of Arundel Wharf. It got me thinking about how much this town has changed since Daniel Walker built it before 1785. Daniel inherited the whole area from his father Gideon Walker in 1778. He built...