Radio Script #564

Little Talks on Common Things

February 10, 1963

What was Waterville’s Main Street like 70 years ago? Fortunately we get a pretty good idea, not only from old photographs, but also from a detailed map of the year 1894. The map does not show owners of buildings, but it does show the kind of occupancy.

Let us first note the west side of Main Street between Post Office Square and Temple Street. Of course in 1894 the junction of Main and Elm Streets was not called Post Office Square, because the post office was then on Common Street. The building in the triangle near the present site of the post office is well remembered by our older citizens because of its long flight of granite steps facing the square. Those steps actually led to the second story, because, built on the slope, the first floor was more easily entered from the Main Street side. It was a brick building, and in 1894 was occupied by a grocery market and a dress-making establishment. Next came a tiny tailor shop, then a small dwelling house, then a larger building containing the fire apparatus for the central part of the city — the big, horse-drawn fire engine and a hook and ladder company. Next to the fire house was a small shop for machine repairs. Then came a brick dwelling house. Next was the Unitarian Church with its broad expanse of front lawn and its wall of big granite block next to the sidewalk. That wall was a favorite place for people to sit when they watched circus parades.

The present site of Parks Diner was then a vacant lot, but a row of small buildings began at what is now Berry’s. First came the steam laundry. (Yes, in 1894 the laundry was on the opposite side of Main Street from where it is now located.) Over the laundry was a club room. Then, in order, came small shops housing a jeweler, a barber, a restaurant, a music store and a dry goods store. Then ,came the Flood Block, the only brick structure and the only large building at that time between the Unitarian Church and Temple Street. On the first floor the Flood Block housed a fish market and a Chinese la.undry. On its second floor were offices, and on the third floor a club room. Next to the Flood Block was the shop of a marble cutter. The store next to his was then vacant, but on the corner of Main and Temple, though the big block now there had not then been built, were a furniture dealer and a grocer.

Now let us see what there Was on the other, the east side of Main Street, starting again at what is now Post Office Square.

There was no business establishment at that time between Union Street and Appleton. Rather there were six dwelling houses, one of them the spacious home of William T. Haines. On the southeast corner of Main and Appleton, where the old Savings Bank Building now stands, there was in 1894 only a vacant lot. In fact as late as 1902 it was still vacant; for, when Waterville then celebrated the 100th anniversary of its incorporation, photographs showed the lot covered with hucksters’ tents, where refreshments were sold on the day of the big centennial parade. Just south of that vacant lot was another dwelling house. The rest of that side of Main Street, all the way to Temple Street, looked much like the old mining towns of the West — a row of one story buildings with fake fronts hiding the low, peaked roofs. In those shops were a carpenter, a painter, a plumber, a Chinese laundryman, a bowling alley, a harness maker, a shoemaker, a milliner and a meat market. Between Union Street and Temple there was in 1894 not a single block, nor even a single brick building.

Now let us examine the west side of Main Street between Temple and Silver. Un the southwest corner of Temple and Main was a grocer. Then came Waterville’s oldest large business structure, the Phoenix Block, standing today much as it did when Timothy Boutelle built it, more than 125 years ago. In 1894 it housed a drug store in one half of the ground floor, just as it had from 1845 until its last druggist tenant, Bob Dexter, left it only a few years ago. That one place had a drug store, mind you, for more than a hundred years. In the other side of the first floor there was in 1894 a stationer, whose principal business then consisted of selling the many different blank forms used for bills, receipts, deeds, mortgages,and other legal instruments.

Next on the way down Main Street came, side by side, two of Waterville’s oldest commercial banks, the Ticonic and the Peoples, each housed in its own small brick building. Then came a clothing manufacturer, followed by two jewelers with shops side by side. Next was the Savings Bank Building, a low brick structure, but slightly larger than the other banks, because it was divided into two parts with the bank in one and a shoe store in the other. South of the Savings Bank were, in order, a milliner, a dry goods store, a barber, another dry goods merchant, and then Waterville’s fourth bank, the Merchants’. Between that bank and Silver Street were another drug store, another dry goods store, a meat market, a crockery dealer, another jeweler, a third drug store, a men’s clothing store, a fruit store, another grocer, and on the corner still another drug store.

One interesting. point to remember about that west side of Main Street between Temple and Silver was that all four of the the banks that then did business in Waterville were then located in that row. Repeating briefly what I have already said, those banks, in order from north to south, were the Ticonic, the Peoples’, the Savings Bank, and the Merchants’.

Now for the east side of Main Street between Temple and the Common. Where Joe’s Smoke Shop now operates was located an undertaker, then a barber, a dry goods store, and a shoe store, before one came to the old and highly respected Arnold’s hardware store. Then came a drug store, and next to it the establishment for books and stationery long operated by the Berry family. Then came Hager’s Ice Cream and Candy parlor. Next to him was a tinker’s shop, then another place selling stoves and hardware. Then came the street railway waiting room, behind which was a barber shop. Next was a building in which boots and shoes were sold, and in which also operated a cobbler. Then, after a small crockery store, on the corner one found a grocery store, just as Sel Whitcomb conducted it until the Montgomery Ward building was erected. Upstairs over that old wooden building on the corner was a restaurant.

In 1894 an unusual number of businesses were housed in the buildings on the east side of Main Street between the Common and Lockwood Square. On the upper corner, just as now, was a tobacco store, then a grocer, then a shoe store. Next was the main entrance to the City Hotel, which really consisted of rooms on two floors over the stores. Next came a milliner and a dealer in ~~gs and other hair goods. Then came another Chinese laundry, a drug store, then a brick’abuilding having a dry goods store and a men’s clothing store. Then came the big brick block where Atherton’s is now located. It housed a plumber, a painter, a grocer, a fish dealer, another tobacconist and a restaurant. Then came two small buildings, and finally the big Durin Block, with stores on the ground floor and the rest occupied by what was then called the Bay View Hotel. It is now the Crescent. On the ground floor of that building, which had once been Waterville’s largest business block, were located in 1894 a barber, a cobbler, a pool room, a painter and a fruit merchant.

On the west side of Main Street below Silver were located the offices of the American Express Company on the second floor of a three story brick building, while on the first floor were tobacco and fruit stores. Another large building in the area, now occupied by the Waterville Hardware Company, contained a men’s clothing store, a groCery, a tailor shop and an undertaker.

That same 1894 map that gives information about Main Street also tells about the city’s manufacturing establishments. Largest, of course, were the Lockwood Mills, listed as having 88,000 spindles, 2,181 looms, and employing 1,800 hands. The Lockwood buildings were described as two large mills; a building for packing, baling and folding; two store houses; and an office building. The map showed that the Lockwood Company also owned four boarding houses, fifteen tenements, and a dwelling house.

Next in importance to Lockwood was Hollingsworth and Whitney, located across the river in Winslow, but giving employment to many Waterville residents. In 1894 the plant employed 200 hands. It was officially called the Taconnet Mills of the H & W Co., and manufactured at that time only manila w”rapping paper. It was described as having nine buildings: a pulp mill, a beating plant, a machine plant, a finishing building, a testing and sizing house, a boiler room and three store houses.

The map does not tell us how many men were then employed in the Maine Central shops, but says only that the place consisted of four shops, a round house, offices and.severalsheds. We know, however, that as long ago as 1894 employment in those shops was substantial and of considerable importance to the economy of Waterville.

Much more extensive was the space on the map given to details about the Hathaway shirt factory. Situated off Appleton Street, it was said to employ Yl125 hands, mostly girls”. The departments, all under one roof, extending north from the Appleton Street end, were described as store room and overseer’s room; stitching, cutting and wash room; ironing room; button hole room; starch room; storage.

In 1894 no fewer than four industries flourished at Crommett’s Mills near the Western Avenue Bridge. Unly one, the H. R. Butterfield Shovel Handle Factory, was on the west side of the stream off Cool Street. The other three, all on the east side, down under the hill, were the A. G. Bowie Sash, Door and Blind Factory, which filled ten separate buildings; the Fuller and Haynes Planing Mill with two buildings; and the Henry Ricker Tannery in one very large building.

Near the Ticonic Bridge to Winslow was the W. S. Brunnel Grist Mill, with its retail grain store on the corner. The mill had two big runs of grinding stones.

In 1894 the plant later known as the Waterville Iron Works had not moved to its location off Front Street. It was still the Webber and Philbrick Foundry, located just below the dam farthest down the Messalonskee below the Emerson Bridge. One interesting item is recorded about the big saw mill of Edward Ware on Fort Point in Winslow. Its fuel was sawdust.

Three other Waterville industries given recognition on the 1894 map were the Noyes and Goddard Stove Foundry on Chaplin Street, the A. P. Emery Wool Shops at the corner of North and West Streets, and the Smart Carriage Factory on Western Avenue near the corner of Burleigh Street.

And that is the story of Waterville’s Main Street and Waterville’s industries in 1894.

Year: 1963