Temple Beth Israel is the oldest, continuously functioning Jewish congregation in Maine.

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Built in 1912, this Temple is home of Maine's oldest, continuously functioning Jewish congregation. A conservative congregation, Beth Israel was founded in 1888. This is the second synagogue belonging to the congregation. The first one was built in 1907 but was destroyed in the great Bangor fire of April 30, 1911. The congregation got work on the current structure and completed it in 1912. Beth Israel was an orthodox congregation until 1948 when it adopted the changes of the conservative movement.

Congregation Beth Israel

This short walk through Bangor starts at the city's central library and includes the Maine Discovery Museum as well as a monument to the city's most famous resident, Hannibal Hamlin who served as Lincoln's Vice President during the Civil War. The tour includes a memorial to Charlie Howard, the victim of a tragic hate crime, as well as stops at some of Bangor's most important civic landmarks and historic buildings.  

Downtown Bangor Maine Walking Tour

In April of 1911, a riverside warehouse on the Penobscot River in Bangor caught fire, beginning what would eventually be known as the Great Fire of 1911.&nbsp; The fire was the worst to strike Bangor and represented the last of its kind in the state.&nbsp; Nearly half of Bangor’s downtown was destroyed, including nearly three hundred residences.&nbsp; Firefighters from as far as Portland arrived to help combat the blaze, but it raged onward.&nbsp; Thankfully, there were only two fatalities.&nbsp; The economic damage, however, was unprecedented in the area.

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The Great Fire of 1911 claimed the post office, customs house, central fire station, telegraph station, the Mechanic Association Public Library, telephone exchange, and a handful of Bangor’s most prolific banks.&nbsp; Many of the businesses destroyed were uninsured.&nbsp;

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The following effort to rebuild the city was remarkable, calling on the talents of designers and planners from across the nation.&nbsp; Many of the restored buildings still stand to this day including the court house and the new Bangor Public Library.&nbsp; Many of Bangor’s most prominent citizens of the time contributed their efforts to the reconstruction of the city.&nbsp; The first commercial building reconstructed after the fire, for example, was funded by John R. Graham, then the president of Bangor Hydro-electric Company.&nbsp; He went on to fund the construction of seven buildings in total, including the new post office and an innovative electrical sub-station to serve the city.&nbsp;

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The rebuilding effort was overseen by the strong presence of the municipal government.&nbsp; The city called on Warren H. Manning of Boston, an accomplished architect, to design the layout of the new city center.&nbsp; Much of his design focused around preparing the city for the rise of the automobile, which at the time had not reached Maine in full.&nbsp; As a result of his foresight, Bangor was more than prepared for the ubiquity of the motorcar that came in the following decades.&nbsp; Manning also designed the downtown with space for a public high school and two malls that “floated” in the center of the Kenduskeag stream, the Kenduskeag Mall and the Norumbega Mall.&nbsp; These were designed to serve as places of natural respite amid the commercial buildings of downtown Bangor.&nbsp; Both of these malls remain to this day, featuring trees, gardens, and public art.&nbsp;

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A great collection of influential architects lent their expertise to the city.&nbsp; Local architects credited with many of the buildings were Wilfred Mansur, Victor Hodgins, Frederick Patterson, and C. Parker Crowell.&nbsp; Mansur was also well-recognized for his work in the Bangor Theological Seminary Historic District.&nbsp; A good number of buildings were designed by out-of-state architectural firms, however, such as Peabody and Stearns of Boston, which designed the Bangor Public Library and the Old Bangor High School.&nbsp; Bangor Savings Bank was architected by one of the largest and most respected firms of New York, Carrere and Hastings.&nbsp; Cram and Ferguson architectural firm and architect Hobart Upjohn were both called upon to design churches in Bangor (the All Soul’s Congregational Church and the St. Johns Episcopal Church, respectively.)

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The notable buildings of the district are explored below.

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The Bangor Public Library:

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The Bangor Public Library started in 1830 as a seven-book collection stored in a small chest in the offices of John S. Sayward on Exchange Street in Bangor.&nbsp; The chest of books served as the library of the Bangor Mechanic Association, which allowed associates to check out two books at a time for use in personal learning or the education of apprentices.&nbsp; Throughout the mid-1800s, the Mechanic Association expanded the library, with the most monumental expansion occurring in 1873 when the Mechanic Association merged with the Bangor Mercantile Association, who had already absorbed a number of small libraries previously.&nbsp; The merger of the two trade associations led to the creation of a centrally located library known as the Bangor Mechanic Association Public Library.

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The Bangor Mechanic Association Public Library would, shortly after the merger, become a part of something much larger.&nbsp; The Honorable Samuel F. Hersey left the City of Bangor a sum of one-hundred thousand dollars following his death in 1883.&nbsp; Hersey’s will indicated that the fortune was to be used “for the promotion of education, and the health and good morals of citizens” (quoted verbatim from the Bangor Public Library’s public history page.)&nbsp; Following a vote by the Bangor City Council, the funds were set aside in full to be used to create a large public library that would be accessible to all citizens of the Bangor area.&nbsp; Overseeing the creation of the library was a board of trustees consisting of the Mayor of Bangor, the treasurer of the city, and three elected citizens.&nbsp; This board would come to be known as the Trustees of the Hersey Fund.

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The Trustees, hoping to start the public library off with a strong beginning, reached out to the Bangor Mechanic Association.&nbsp; Shortly after, the two groups re-organized into the Bangor Public Library, which would incorporate the Mechanic Association’s burgeoning library (containing then nearly twenty-thousand texts.)&nbsp; The Mechanics Association contributed an additional twelve thousand dollars which were combined with Hersey’s one-hundred thousand to form a sizeable endowment for the library.&nbsp; The new management of the Bangor Public Library consisted of the Trustees and four elected officers from the Bangor Mechanic Association.&nbsp; This leadership remains largely intact today, with the exception that the Mayor no longer by default sits within the Trustees of the Hersey Fund.&nbsp;

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Membership to the Bangor Public Library became completely free in 1905 and was housed in Bangor’s business district until the disastrous Great Fire of 1911.&nbsp; The Great Fire nearly destroyed the library in whole.&nbsp; At the time of the fire, the Bangor Public Library consisted of approximately seventy-thousand texts.&nbsp; Following the fire, less than two thousand remained.&nbsp;

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Plans were drawn up to rebuild and restore the library to its former glory in mid-1912.&nbsp; Working with a Boston architectural firm known as Peabody and Stearns, the Board of the Managers of the Bangor Public Library set out to create an educational district within the City of Bangor.&nbsp; In cooperation with the city governance, Peabody and Stearns designed a district that would contain Bangor High School and the Bangor Public Library, two public parks, and a new post office and court house.&nbsp; Construction began shortly afterward, and was completed in December of 1913.&nbsp;

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Since 1913, the Bangor Public Library has grown to surpass its previous size and now serves not only as a library but as a museum and home for many of Bangor’s public education initiatives.&nbsp; The Bangor Public Library houses a large computer lab and is the home of numerous historical artifacts, including items owned by Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a Maine native.

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The Norumbega and Kenduskeag Malls:

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These wide plazas “float” in the center of the Kenduskeag Stream, elevated above the water.&nbsp; The Norumbega mall now contains a WWI memorial statue, and the Kenduskeag Mall contains a statue of United States Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, a Maine native.&nbsp; &nbsp;Both malls are designed in the Classical Revival architectural style.&nbsp; The Norumbega and Kenduskeag Malls represent a forward-thinking effort by Boston architect Warren H. Manning to build spaces for public respite within the compact city center.&nbsp;

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The Morse Building:

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Designed by Bangor architect Victor Hodgins, the Morse building is a Renaissance Revival styled building made with pressed red brick.&nbsp; It is one of the smaller buildings contained in the district. &nbsp;It was remodeled in 1955 by Sears Roebuck and Company.

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Pierce Park: 

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A park directly next to the public library, Pierce Park contains Renaissance Revival architecture and a bronze statue mounted on a high pedestal.&nbsp; The statue depicts a group of loggers working together and was carved by Charles A. Tefft of Bangor’s twin city, Brewer.

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Bangor High School:

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Designed by Peabody and Stearns, a notable architectural firm headquartered in Boston, the original location of Bangor High School is now a part of the public library.&nbsp; It is topped by a grand copper roof that contains a glass and copper dome.&nbsp; This building is styled in the Renaissance Revival style, and the interior has been well preserved.&nbsp;

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Bangor Railway and Electric Company Sub-Station:

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Designed by the respected New York firm of Jardine, Kent, and Hill in 1912, this building served as a cornerstone for the spread of electricity through the City of Bangor.&nbsp; Following the fire, the rebuilding efforts in Bangor led to the city having one of the highest ratios of lightbulbs-to-citizens at the time.

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Telephone Exchange:

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A seven-and-a-half story building built in 1931, the Bangor Telephone Exchange is unique in that it is one of the few Art Deco style buildings in the city.&nbsp; The lobby of the Telephone Exchange has been well preserved.

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First National Bank Building and the Bangor Hydro Building:

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Built in 1915 to designs by Bangor architect Wilfred Mansur, the Bangor Hydro Building is a Classical Revival style building featuring large columnns and pressed brick façade.&nbsp; The interior has been preserved.

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Nichols, Stetson, Sterns, and Hall Blocks:

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Located on exchange street, these three commercial blocks are designed largely in the Romanesque Revival styles with brick exteriors.&nbsp; Bangor architect Wilfred Mansur designed all four blocks.

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Post Office (City Hall):

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Designed by the Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Oscar Wenderoth in 1914, the new post office of Bangor, Maine was built in the Classical Revival style of architecture.&nbsp; This building now serves as the City Hall of Bangor.

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Within the district, there are a number of other buildings that are either unnamed or contain little notable history other than their design.&nbsp; These buildings have been omitted from this article, though they are documented in the National Park Service paperwork for the district.&nbsp; &nbsp;

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Located in the Center of the “Great Fire of 1911 Historic District” of Bangor, Maine lies the Bangor Public Library.  Active to this day in multiple capacities, the Bangor Public library is a fantastically preserved piece of Bangor’s history from a period that was largely lost to fire.  The Great Fire Historic District contains a number of other surviving structures as well, though none are quite as prolific as the library itself, which houses historic art and documents in its spacious halls.  The history of each notable building and structure within the district, including the library, is explored in full below.

The Bangor Public Library and the Great Fire of 1911 Historic District

The museum adopted its current name in the early 1980s. It moved to Norumbega Hall, which used to house a department store,&nbsp;in 2002.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The University of Maine Museum of Art is located on the first floor of Norumbega Hall in downtown Bangor. It was established as the University of Maine Art Collection in 1946 by Vincent Hartgen, who served as its first curator (he was also a faculty member). Thus far, it is the only museum in Maine to have a permanent art collection. The collection, which focuses on contemporary art, amounts to over 3,800 works of art. Artists in the collection include those by Any Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Edward Hopper and many by Maine artists. The downtown location enables the museum to serve as fine arts center. As such, it offers art camps for children, special events, family programs, adult education classes, and other programs. 

University of Maine Museum of Art

Hannibal Hamlin (1809-1891) was the 15th Vice President of the United States under President Abraham Lincoln, but his political career did not begin with his vice presidency. Hamlin first attained admission to the Maine bar in 1833 and began a political career two years later when he first served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1836 to 1840 as a Jacksonian Democrat. In 1842, he was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for five years, and then the Senate in 1848. After he became Senator, he left the Democratic Party in 1856. He took an antislavery position and did not like that the Democratic Party supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. He also opposed the Democratic Party's support of slavery. Hamlin was also elected as Maine's first Republican governor in 1856; however, he resigned in 1857 to go back to the Senate. In 1860, Hamlin was put on the ballot as the Republican Party's vice president candidate with Abraham Lincoln. Hamlin complemented Lincoln well because he was from the Northeast, whereas Lincoln was from Illinois. Hamlin did not want to be nominated for the position, but he decided to follow it through to be loyal to his political party and to the abolition of slavery in the United States. As Vice President, however, Lincoln did not use Hamlin often for support, and Hamlin, for the first time in his political career, was not representing people from Maine. In the 1864 election, Hamlin was not up for re-election and was instead replaced with Southerner Andrew Johnson. After his term as Vice President, Hamlin was a port collector in Boston and served as president of a railroad company. Despite leaving government for a short time, Hamlin went back and served as a Senator from 1869 to 1881. He then became Minister to Spain in 1881. He returned from Spain in 1882 and returned to his home in Bangor, Maine.

Erected in 1927 in Kenduskeag Stream Park, this statue commemorates the life of Maine resident Hannibal Hamlin who served as Abraham Lincoln's Vice President.  Hamlin began his political career in the Maine House of Representatives before being elected to first the House of Representatives in Washington D.C. and then the Senate. In the Senate, Hamlin changed to the Republican Party and was put on the 1860 ballot for Vice President alongside Abraham Lincoln. Hamlin eventually returned to Bangor, Maine, after a long political career, where he died in 1891. The statue is accompanied by a historical marker. 

Hannibal Hamlin Statue

The Maine Discovery Museum is the largest located children's museum in New England beyond Boston. The movement to create a children's museum in Bangor began with a public forum in 1997. With public and private support, the museum opened in 2001

Maine Discovery Museum

Diversity Day is now celebrated each year on July 7th in&nbsp;remembrance of Howard&nbsp;and the hate that led to his tragic death.&nbsp;Miki Macdonald, who helps to maintain the memorial,&nbsp;told the Bangor Daily News that the vandalism has&nbsp;not only failed to intimidate activists&nbsp;but helped remind the community of the continued intolerance that&nbsp;still exists.&nbsp;“Actually, having something so offensive like that happen to the memorial made all these people regroup, and I think it’s rekindled our intention to encourage tolerance in our community,” she explained.&nbsp;

Charlie Howard and companion Roy Ogden were walking near this bridge when they were attacked by three teenagers on the night of July 7, 1984. The teenagers harassed the two men simply because they were homosexual. They chased and beat Charlie Howard and threw him over the State Street Bridge despite his pleas for mercy and despite Howard telling the three young men that he could not swim. Howard's body was recovered hours later and news of the murder galvanized gay and straight residents throughout Bangor. The Bangor city council approved a memorial for Howard in 2007. When vandals desecrated the monument in 2009 and again in 2011, residents of Bangor again came together to stand against intolerance through demonstrations and the restoration of the monument. One of the three young men, now an adult who lives in Bangor, regularly speaks out about the consequences of intolerance and his fateful actions that led to Howard's death-something he thinks about every day.  

Charlie Howard Memorial

All Souls was constructed in a neighborhood that was, at the time, the prime of Bangor’s residential neighborhoods.&nbsp; Once surrounded by quality residences, the neighborhood has changed greatly over the century since All Souls’ construction.&nbsp; It was the product of an aspiring new congregation, formed by two congregations displaced by Bangor’s 1911 fire, who sought to construct a handsome structure for worship.

A number of Bangor’s wealthiest considered themselves a part of the merged congregation of two other churches, the First and the Third Congregational churches, which took on the name All Souls.&nbsp; As a result, there was a push to bring a new level of architectural quality to the City of Bangor, seemingly a statement of defiance against the fire that destroyed so much.&nbsp; All Souls hired Ralph Adams Cram, whose curriculum vitae included some of the United States’ finest Gothic churches.&nbsp; The building site of the church, perched at the top of the State Street hill, was a challenging location that caught Cram’s interest, and he designed a fabulous church to house the congregation. &nbsp;

Cram, born in New Hampshire in December of 1863, was an incredibly accomplished architect and was well-renowned for his work.&nbsp; His works include New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Princeton University Chapel and Graduate College, and the uniquely Japanese-styled “House of the Rising Sun” in Fall River, Massachusetts.&nbsp; Additionally, he led Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Architecture Department and published a great number of influential books on architecture including a study on Japanese architectural styles.&nbsp; As an interesting side note, Ralph Adams Cram was also a fiction writer whose weird fiction pieces gained praise and commentary from H.P. Lovecraft.&nbsp;

To this day (as of the creation of this entry in 2017,) All Souls Congregational Church still houses a very active congregation.&nbsp; So centrally located in Bangor, most locals are intimately familiar with the structure and its unique overlook of the City of Bangor.&nbsp; It’s stained glass windows, wonderfully preserved, are an attraction for locals and travelers alike.&nbsp;&nbsp;

All Souls Congregational Church of Bangor, Maine is a grand church that sits in the center of the city on one of Bangor’s busiest roads.  It was constructed in 1911 to designs by nationally respected architect Ralph Adams Cram.  The church is a Latin cross with a unique roof design that gives it characteristics of ship churches in England.  It is one of a small handful of buildings that retains its original style on the road, surrounded by modern buildings such as gas stations and groceries.  Another historical building, John Bapst Memorial High School, stands a short distance down the road.


All Souls Congregational Church

Johannes Bapst, the school’s namesake, was born in Fribourg,
Switzerland on December 17, 1815.&nbsp; At the age of twelve, Bapst joined the Jesuit order&nbsp;and was ordained as a priest in 1846. Two years later, Bapst arrived in New York and was promptly sent to
minister to the Native American population in Old Town, Maine. After Old Town, Bapst went on work in
Ellsworth, Maine, and then, later, to found the very first Catholic church in
Bangor in the year of 1856. 

Johannes Bapst’s experience in Ellsworth is well known among local historians. After making a public denouncement of local
schools for requiring Catholic children to study with Protestant Bibles, the town
council of Ellsworth forbid him from the town. In addition, some of the locals threatened Bapst with&nbsp;physical harm. In June 1851, when the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing
political movement was growing, Bapst was attacked in
his own home by the townspeople of Ellsworth. Two days later, he was tarred and feathered in public then ridden on a
rail out of town and ordered to leave the neighborhood
permanently.&nbsp;&nbsp;This attack was met with
condemnation from the rest of Maine and New England. Bapst recovered from his injuries and later went
on to found the first Catholic church in Bangor. He also became the&nbsp;first President
of Boston College.&nbsp; 

Today, Bapst's former school prides itself on its higher-than-average student
standardized test scores, its high percentage of Advanced Placement enrollment,
and its faculty achievement. Teachers
such as Brendan Murphy have received accolade for worldwide achievements;
Murphy was awarded the College Board’s Top New England Educator award for his
exemplary teaching in Calculus and Statistics, which included the instruction
of teachers in nearly every continent on Earth.&nbsp;
Additionally, the school has been repeatedly recognized by Siemens and
the College Board for STEM achievements.

&nbsp;As for community involvement, Bapst’s influence has
historically been strong in the arts.&nbsp;
The school hosts two public art exhibits each year, and the performance
bands have reached national recognition on numerous occasions, notably
performing for the first homecoming return of Gulf War troops in 1991 and the
Inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1997.&nbsp;
The school records that over a third of the student body is involved in
one or more of their music programs.&nbsp;
Additionally, the school participates in&nbsp;16 competitive sports.

Established as a private Catholic school on the 10th of September in 1928, John Bapst Memorial High School serves as a living monument to the history of the city of Bangor, Maine. The school was named after Jesuit missionary Johannes Bapst, whose work was central to the growth of Catholicism in Bangor. While the school was once restricted to men, it was closed and subsequently reopened in 1980 as a non-sectarian school open to all. Since that time, the school has continually grown in size and became a residential school with an international student body by 2011. As of 2017, the school houses approximately 50 international students from all over the world.  The school is best-known locally for its award-winning teachers and its regular community art events including art exhibits and theater performances. 

Downtown Bangor Maine Walking Tour

Congregation Beth Israel

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