<\/p>\n
Time, as measured by the coverage of these broadcasts, has extended over more than two centuries. Hence anything that happened less than fifty years ago seems very recent, but the date we have in mind, as we start this broadcast today is only 45 years ago in 1921.<\/p>\n
Last summer I was shown a series of maps, all of them of different sections of the City of Waterville as our city was in 1921. The series consists of 25 maps, bound together in atlas form, each map showing in large scale one part of Waterville, with every building designated by name or street number. The most outstanding feature of these maps, from our vantage point of 1966, is that the only places designated anywhere west of the Messalonskee are a few houses on Western Avenue and on Oakland Street. There were a few scattered farmhouses on other spots west of the stream and still within the official limits of Waterville, but except for Western Avenue and Oakland Street and the northern end of Cool Street, the development of western Waterville has occurred entirely since 1921.<\/p>\n
Built up since that date have been the houses on both sides of Mayflower Hill Drive, all the way from the Gilman Street bridge to the Colby campus. New are the houses and even the other streets in that area, except for the old thoroughfare known as the First Rangeway, which had only two or three houses in 1921. In 1921 there was no Averill Terrace, no Highland Avenue, no Cherry Hill Drive, none of the complex of streets near the junction of Western Avenue and the Rangeway. All of the attractive new houses in that area were undreamed of in 1921.<\/p>\n
One of the 25 maps shows the old campus of Colby College as it was at the time of the Colby Centennial in 1920. All that is left there today is the near ruin of Memorial Hall, which the Memorial Hall Trust is valiantly trying to preserve. The map shows that on the old campus there were then nine buildings besides Memorial Hall. In the front row were the original three brick buildings — all that the college had until after the Civil War. The middle one was a classroom building familiarly called Recitation Hall, although its official name was Champlin Hall.<\/p>\n
South of it was Colby’s oldest building, South College. In 1920 that building, divided into two distinct sections with a fire wall between, was no longer a general dormitory, but housed two of Colby’s fraternities. In the south section was Zeta Psi, in the north section Alpha Tau Omega. North of Recitation Hall was another residence hall, a duplicate of South College, and quite naturally called North College. It too provided housing for fraternities, Delta Upsilon in the south end, and Lambda Chi Alpha in the north. Behind the original three buildings were two dormitories built in President Roberts’ time. One was named for him, Roberts Hall; the other,named for the popular professor of French who died in 1914, was Hedman Hall. The southernmost building on the campus, standing back of and a bit to the south of Memorial Hall was Chemical Hall, which housed not only the Department of Chemistry, but also the office of the President. At the northern end of the front campus was Coburn Hall. where presided Professor Webster Chester of the Department of Biology, who in 1921 had already been on the faculty for 18 years and was to remain a member for 27 more. Prof. Chester is today the only living person who served during the entire presidencies of both Arthur Roberts and Franklin Johnson and well into the Bixler administration.<\/p>\n
There were two other buildings on that old map of 1921, the Gymnasium and the Shannon Observatory. In 1921 the Woodman Stadjum had just been built, but this map was drawn too early to show it. Instead the map depicts the old wooden grandstand that preceded the concrete stadium.<\/p>\n
Another of the 25 maps shows the women’s buildings and others connected with the college on or near lower College Avenue. These maps are in fact on such a large scale that one of them includes only the area bounded by College Avenue. Chaplin Street, Main Street and Getchell Street. That map shows Foss Hall only as college property. It would be nearly ten years before the Alumnae Building would be erected.<\/p>\n
An entirely different map, part of which shows College Avenue from Getchell Street to Post Office Square, identifies the building on the south corner of Getchell Street at College Avenue as Mary Low Hall. For many years earlier it had been known as Palmer House. Under both names it was a Colby dormitory for women.<\/p>\n
It takes still another map, one for the east side of lower College Avenue, to show the President’s House where for twenty years Dr. and Mrs. Arthur J. Roberts were the residents. The building now provides offices for several physicians.<\/p>\n
Just south of the President’s House, where is now the A & P Store, was the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house. Previous to 1908 it had been known as Ladies Hall, because for many years preceding the opening of Foss Hall in 1904 it was the only dormitory for Colby women. On the same map, a few doors south of the Phi Delta Theta house, was the home of Colby’s oldest fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon. That fraternity had taken over and enlarged the stately home of the Waterville publisher, Daniel Wing. The site is now occupied by the American Legion Building.<\/p>\n
The changing times have unfortunately eliminated some of the gracious, beautiful homes of Waterville’s past. Three of these homes, clearly designated on one of the 25 maps, stood side by side on the west of Main Street north of Center Street. They were the Plaisted House, the Meader House and the Thayer House. The whole area is now occupied by the First National Store and its parking lot. But in 1921, in those stately houses there still resided members of famous Waterville families, the Plaisteds, the Meaders and the Thayers.<\/p>\n
The automobile had become a familiar sight by 1921. I remember the year well, because it was the first that I owned a car. But the coming of the auto had not yet changed the name of the big building back of the Elmwood Hotel. The map designates it as the Elmwood Stable. A later map labeled it the Elmwood Garage.<\/p>\n
Interesting is what one of the maps tells us about Main Street from Post Office Square to Temple Street, especially since many of the buildings on the west side of that section of Main Street will soon be demolished by urban renewal.<\/p>\n
On the east side of the street the Fire Station and the block containing a furniture store, a fruit store and a travel agency were just as they are now. Only slightly altered is the Hanford Hotel, which I hold fondly in memory, because when I entered Colby as a freshman in 1909, I earned my board there as a dining room waiter for Ma Jones. Between the Hanford and the Hussey building, now occupied by Boothby and Bartlett, were two dwelling houses, and another dwelling stood between the Hussey building and Appleton Street.<\/p>\n
In 1921 the Professional BUilding had not yet been built, and on that corner of of Appleton Street was a gasoline station. The map tells us it had a buried tank with a capacity of 1,000 gallons. It stood where the Haines residence had been before it was moved back to make room for the later erection of the Professional Building. South of Appleton Street was the Savings Bank Building, now called the Levine Block. On the north side of the first floor was the bank itself; in the south side was a music store. Next to the south was the Edith Building with stores and offices. Here, from its first coming to Waterville to the present day, the Woolworth Company has found a home.<\/p>\n
Strangely this particular map shows no buildings at all from Number 151 to 157. After that vacant jump came the Waterville Steam Laundry. Adjoining it was not the Harris Baking, but a barber shop. Between there and Temple Street was a cluster of small buildings containing the hair store of Miss Emma Lovering, the photo establishment of Karekin Sahagian, where he and his brother also sold oriental rugs; and in a narrow shop on the corner was Carter the Florist.<\/p>\n
Going back to Post Office Square, and coming down the west side of Main Street, let us see what the 1921 map tells us. South of the Post Office, which had been built less than ten years before, was the new building of the Ticonic National Bank, now the home of the Waterville Savings Bank. Then came the spacious open lawn in front of the Unitarian Church and the Ware Parlors. Behind the church, on Elm Street, rose the five stories of the new Melcher Apartments.<\/p>\n
In 1921 Parks Diner had not yet made its appearance. Just south of the court leading to the Raymond boarding house and its adjoining dwellings were the offices of Boothby and Bartlett, the grocery of Hersom and Bonsall, a restaurant and two other stores. Then the map shows a vacant space at Number 156 and 158 before depicting the Flood Block, where were housed the tobacco shop and pool room of Charlie Miller, the American Express Company, and Mitchell the Florist. Next came Verzoni’s fruit store, Steele’s grocery, and on the corner the Burleigh Block with Carl Cooke’s Bookstore.<\/p>\n
Now let us see what another of the 25 maps tells us about the east side of Main Street from Temple Street to Castonguay Square. On the corner, where now is Joe’s Smoke Shop, was a drug store. Next door was a Tea Store. Then came Hager’s Candy establishment and ice cream parlor, Arnold’s Hardware, two stores which the map does not name, the waiting room of the street railway with offices of the Central Maine Power Company overhead, Luke Brown the tailor, a grocery store that I don’t seem to remember at all, a jewelry store, the tobacco store of Dignam and Larkin, a barber shop, and on the corner the well known grocery of Sel Whitcomb, with Harmon’s restaurant on the second floor.<\/p>\n
On the west side of Main Street, from Temple to Silver, there came first a grocery, then Begin’s barber shop, a little lunch room, the Spear candy factory, later operated by Perry Maddocks, Allen’s Drug Store, and a vacant place. Next was the People’s National Bank, where the familiar banker Charlie Vigue presided, then the old Heald Clothing Store, which in 1921 was operated by “Braggo” Ervin, who had graduated from Colby just ten years earlier and who at the time when the map was made had a side line as Graduate Manager of Athletics at Colby. Just south of Ervin’s clothing emporium was Harriman’s Jewelry Store and Green’s 5 and 10 cent store, predecessor of the present McLellans. Next was a shoe shine stand, then Wardwell’s dry goods store, then Herbert Emery’s similar establishment (the two were later to merge), then a store that the map does not name. From there, in front of Castonguay Square, to the corner the places of business were Dunham’s Clothing Store, a pool room, Soper’s Department Store, another drug store, and the big Clukey store on the corner of Silver Street.<\/p>\n
Others of the 25 maps revealed similar changes allover the city, but that is all we have time to describe on this program.<\/p>\n
Year: 1966<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #686, Broadcast on April 3, 1966<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42954,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}