Something was amiss with the cosmos during the third week of July 1926. The temperature hovered near 100 all up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as Ohio. All but convicted murderers were released from the stifling prisons in North Carolina where temperatures reached 107. Hundreds slept out in the open on...
Category: History
Early Kennebunks photographer, Aaron B. Houdlette
Aaron B. Houdlette, He was born in Dresden Me and took lots of early photographs of Richmond Me, across the Kennebec River. He came to Kennebunkport in the early 1880s, after being a professional photographer in Boston for 20 years. Houdlette was still working summers in Kennebunkport until two years before he died in 1909...
Goose Rocks Beach by Any Other Name
Last week’s THROWBACK THURSDAY about the name changes at Kennebunk Beaches invited lots of comments and questions. Thanks for that! I love hearing about your experiences and your knowledge of our history. I also heard from people who were curious about how Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport got its name and if it was ever...
A beach by any other name…
Dare I broach the contentious subject of the names of Kennebunk Beaches? When your use of the name, “Mother’s Beach” evokes an alarming reaction from some of the local “old timers,” you may assume they are having a hard time parting with the name their mother called it by, “Kennebunk Beach.” But this argument did...
Kennebunkport’s Masonic Temple
The cornerstone of the new Masonic Lodge was laid at the site of the new building next to Robert and Earnest Benson’s Blacksmith Shop on Temple St on Saturday, October 26, 1929. Everyone gathered at the Olympian Club House, the temporary home of Arundel Lodge 76. A line was formed. The grand officers and members...
Atwater’s Edge in 1925
Inventor Arthur Atwater Kent introduced his first major invention, the Unispark Ignition System in 1906. Before that, automobiles had to be started by cranking an ignition mounted on the front of the hood. The driver would then jump into the car and hope it continued to run long enough to get the motor into gear....
Prohibition in the Kennebunks
This morning I’m sharing photographs from the Kennebunkport Historical Society’s Salt Magazine Collection. The Salt Institute was located in Herbie Baum’s Boatyard in Kennebunk Lower Village in the 1970s when under the direction of Pamela Wood, the Kennebunk High School students interviewed Henry Weaver, the Southern Maine Federal Prohibition Agent. Wearver helped to bring down...
First Edition of Kennebunkport in the 1920s
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...
The Boston & Kennebunkport Seashore Company 1872 promotional photos of Cape Arundel
The Boston & Kennebunkport Seashore Company was the group of New England men who incorporated in 1872 to develop five miles of coastline from Cape Porpoise to Lord’s Point into a summer tourist colony. To entice prospective cottage builders, the Seashore Company commissioned The Moulton Brothers of Salem, Massachusetts to take a series of stereoscopics...
The Burleigh S. Thompson Cottages
Kennebunk-born Burleigh S. Thompson moved to Boston as a young man. He eventually became a wealthy dealer in tea, coffee, and cigars and married Harriet Gove of Cohasset, Massachusetts in 1854. Burleigh and Harriet were already living in the c.1800 Perkins House in Kennebunkport Village by 1880. They moved here from Cohasset Massachusetts to be...