RUMFORD — Saturday’s neighborhood block party on the old Martin Memorial Bridge wasn’t flashy, but it was fun.

Rumford Point resident Ben Byam organized the party after getting permission from the contractors for the new bridge, Wyman & Simpson. The new span, which was built a short way upriver from the old bridge, opened June 30.

Many of the more than 100 people who attended the party said they were children when the 60-year-old steel span above the Androscoggin River was built. They reminisced about riding the ferry across the river and catching the stage to the train station to get to Portland before the bridge was built in 1955.

“It was nice to reconnect with everyone,” Sue Byam of Mexico said.

Freeman Farrington, 85, and his wife Norma Farrington of East Andover said they enjoyed attending the party and sharing anecdotes, and socializing with friends.

“I think it would be a great place to reminisce, but the only thing is, you have to say how old you are,” Norma Farrington said.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Freeman Farrington said of holding a party on the bridge to celebrate its demise. “I hate to see it go.”

He said he helped build the abutments for the old bridge when he was in his mid 20s. “I don’t remember all the dates, but I got out of the service and we got married and I was working here building the bridge.”

He said there was a ferry at Rumford Point, one at Rumford Center and another in Hanover. Bob and Carol Parise of Rumford said there was also a ferry in South Rumford.

Farrington said he and a crew used to come down from Andover, cross the river on the ferry at Rumford Point, load logs by hand with a peavy, and then head for South Rumford.

Both Farrington and Carol Parise recalled one ferry mishap at Rumford Point when a truck loaded with potatoes rolled off it. A ferry worker was killed when the cable broke. Farrington said that’s why the ferry operator wouldn’t let workers building the 1955 bridge take dump trucks loaded with rocks across on it.

Carol Parise said there used to be a hotel at the end of the bridge on the corner of Route 232 where the stage came and went. “And (Teddy) Roosevelt came and stayed there, because he went up to Richardson Lake,” she said.

Down at the bridge entrance near the 1864 Congregational Church, Sue Charlton was cooking several ears of corn on the cob picked fresh in Delaware on Thursday. She and her boyfriend of Ipswich, Mass., run their Chelsea Morning Produce business in Ipswich. They bought the house behind the Congregational Church and live in Rumford Point on weekends.

Charlton offered free corn and watermelon slices, much to the delight of the crowd. There were also free bags of popcorn. Hot dogs, soda and ice cream bars were sold nearby.

After the party began at 11 a.m., people driving by on Route 2 stopped in to find out what was going on, because there were no signs up. “We’re having a bridge party,” Charlton told them. “This is Maine. We party for any reason.”

She said she was born when Martin Memorial Bridge was built  in 1955. In 2012, the Federal Highway Administration classified the bridge as “structurally deficient.”

Lewis and Sydney Lamson of Fort Worth, Texas, said they saw a story about the party in the Sun Journal and flew back to attend it. Lewis grew up in Rumford Point and used to ride the ferry as a child. He watched the crews building the bridge in 1955.

“You shouldn’t be able to outlive a bridge,” Lewis Lamson, 71, said.

tkarkos@sunmediagroup.net

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