Sometimes women clung to the horses as they made their ‘suicide jumps’ from platforms 40 feet high or more, with riders sometimes injured or even blinded.
Maine History
Posted inbPlus
Chances are nobody will ever again see Maine’s first big movie, viewed worldwide a century ago
‘The Rider of the King Log,’ by well-known Auburn writer Holman Day, featured log drives, dam explosions, romance and more, but it has utterly vanished since its debut in 1921
advertisement
Posted inMaine
Restoration of Starling Hall in Fayette has come a long way, but has much farther to go
Starling Hall was built in 1879 and is the state’s first Grange Hall. Efforts to revive the building have been limited by funding, and the group seeks $600,000 to finish the job.
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, News, Oxford Hills
Overseers of the poor: Oxford letters portray the plight of town paupers
For centuries Maine communities relied on Elizabethan-era laws to determine support for poor residents and nonresidents.
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Maine
The only elephant in America in 1816 once frolicked in the Androscoggin River
Old Bet appears to have toured the eastern U.S. and may have lived to a riper old age if it wasn’t for fateful visit to Alfred, Maine.
Posted inAndroscoggin County, Lewiston-Auburn, Maine
The life and legend of Worumbo, a Native American in colonial Maine
His name and image have long been associated with Lisbon, but except for some tall tales and a few hints, much of the man’s actual life is a mystery and will likely remain that way.
Posted inbPlus
Hard cider bounces back in Maine, 150 years later
Mainers once guzzled gallons of hard cider year-round. Some hope they will again, as a growing number of producers add new twists to the once commonplace drink.
Posted inMaine, News
Celebrated Chinese American mom to be honored posthumously in Portland
A plaque will mark the site on Forest Avenue where Toy Len Goon, ‘an extraordinary woman,’ ran a laundry and raised eight children as a single widow in the mid-20th century.
Posted inBusiness, Maine, News
Portland has changed and you can really smell the difference
A generation ago the city’s signature smells included J.J. Nissen Bakery, Jordan’s Meats and the soon-to-close B&M Baked Beans plant. Today the city’s aroma includes whiffs of coffee roasting, food trucks, breweries and oil tanks.
Posted inbPlus
They were winter weary, fed up and suffering ‘Ohio Fever’: How fleeing Mainers founded Maineville, Ohio
The tiny town in southwest Ohio was among the places Mainers settled in the 1800’s seeking a better life, and the town maintains a connection with Maine 200 years later.