THE BANGOR HOUSE

Corner of Main & Union Streets. Survivor of stagecoach, schooner and steamboat days, and the last survivor of the "palace" hotels in the country. It was built on the same plan, though smaller in scale, as Boston's Tremont House. Financed by wealthy lumbermen and designed by Isiah Rogers, the Bangor House opened in 1834 in a New Year's Ball celebration. It was only a short walk but a world away from the Penobscot River and Devil's Half-Acre, a bawdy district where lumbermen, dock-workers and sailors frequented prog shops and brothels. One of the hotel's first functions was a dinner for Daniel Webster, then New England's favorite son as Presidential candidate. President Ulysses S. Grant stayed at the Bangor House when he came to officially open the European-North American Railroad. Notable guests also included Arthur Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen A. Douglas, Oscar Wilde, and John L. Sullivan, world heavy-weight champion. In the days of prohibition in Maine, hotels and restaurants operated under the 'Bangor Plan'. The bar operator paid a standard fine in court twice a year and was politely ignored by police the rest of the time. Carrie A. Nation, the hatchet-wielding prohibitionist, wrote in her memoirs that the manager at the time, Captain Horace Crockett Chapman, was the worst rum seller in the country.