New
History Calendar
By: Doris Sherrow
Once again,
the Portland Historical Society has created a historical-photograph
calendar for the upcoming year. Since 1983, members of the Society have
selected pictures from private collections and from the Society’s
own resources to let people see--or remember--how we looked in past decades.
This year’s calendar concentrates on
downtown Portland--Main Street from the Connecticut River to the high
200s. The cover shows a ca. 1908 picture postcard of the 1870 railroad
bridge and the first bridge for vehicles and foot traffic, built in 1896.
The calendar proceeds up Main Street geographically.
January shows a photograph of lower Main Street, which would have led
to the river’s edge, except that in this photo, the river’s
edge has come to the street! The picture probably dates from the flood
of 1936--that occurred in April, and the trees in this picture show small
leaves rather than the full vegetation that they would have had during
the hurricane of September, 1938.
Next is the Strong and Hale Lumber Company.
Up until recently, this building served as the Senior Center, so
many will remember it, but you won’t remember it like it is in this
picture! The company appears to be in celebration, with several officials
on the lovely front entranceway. The original trim still remains around
the windows and above the roof. The picture appears to be an anniversary
celebration of the Strong and Hale, with the officials poised on the doorstep.
Strong and Hale, established in 1868, was sold to Gustav Lowenthal Lumber
Company in 1961, so some of you may remember the building when it was
still a lumber company!
The next picture shows what is probably
106 Main Street, a colonial or Federal-style house that had taken the
route of most of lower Main Street’s buildings. While it is obviously
a house, it also contains both a dress shop and a barber shop on the main
floor. The back of the Historical Society’s photograph identified
Katherine Sullivan and Anne Carroll as two of the three
women outside the dress shop, and the man was barber William Callaghan.
No street number was given, but the year was 1916, and in the city directories,
the 19-teens--as well as a couple more decades!-- show that William Callaghan
was running his barber shop from 106 Main. So that’s probably the
address.
This house is a puzzlement to me: it has
the "five-bay" configuration of a standard colonial house. (A
"bay" is an opening in the façade, either a door or a
window.) It is 2 ½ stories tall, but it looks as if the roofline
has been raised at some later point, and smaller windows inserted under
the eaves to render the house almost 3 stories tall. I don’t know
whether this is a Federal variation on domestic architecture, or whether
it’s a common, useful way to gain extra living space from a standard
colonial house, (particularly if you’ve used up your first floor
to make dresses and cut men’s hair!) while creating a roof that can
be reshingled without so much angle to make you fall off! Unfortunately,
these houses seem to have occurred in more citified regions, so that most
have been knocked down to put in modern architecture. I know there are
some local folks who must know the answer to this question--feel free
to contact me, or the Historical Society! (You know who you are…)
The next picture, moving up the street,
shows the northernmost half of the main house at 246 Main (the south wing
of which is currently Kimberly’s luncheonette), the little Greek
Revival-style building that was 250, and the first firehouse for Fire
Company No.1. Only 246, the 1804 Joel Hall Jr. house, still remains. 250,
Strong's and later Whitby's Meat Market, was knocked down in the
1980s. It had a charming façade with a pedimented gable, though
its floors lifted and sank like old oaken sea waves. The tiny firehouse,
resembling 601 Main Street, the 1889 Fire House No.2, was replaced in
1923 by a similar-sized gambrel-roofed building located exactly where
the entrance to Portland Country Market’s driveway now is.
(And that was replaced in 1959 by the large brick building that we all
know on Middlesex Avenue.) This picture was taken before 1922, because
that was the year that 248 Main, recently the East Coast Glass shop, was
built.
Moving up the street, there is a picture
of 258, 260, and 264 Main, a cheerful shot of 259 Main during Fire Company
No.1’s 75th anniversary parade in 1959 (the porch is not yet closed
in!), and the old Town Hall celebrating its 1941 north addition with Robert
A. Hurley, the governor of the state.
Another postcard view shows 267, 269, 275, and a bit of 277 Main Street.
Only 277 remains intact today. The other three have been demolished and
rebuilt, or in the case of 267, druggist Charles Blodget’s
Greek Revival style house, made into a parking lot.
A very early shot of the old bank building
at 269 Main (now the site of Fleet Bank) shows the dirt road with
which people once had to deal. This road--our Main Street!--appears to
be dry and perhaps a bit dusty, but a good rain could make that mud ankle
deep, and mire till Tuesday your heavily-loaded wagon!
The calendar offers a lovely oval shot of
Waverly Hall, the fancy building which stood at 275 Main from 1868
to 1918, and a program from one of its productions. Waverly Hall caught
fire and burned in January of 1918. Cloaked in the fears of World War
I and the knowledge that the town’s arms had been stored in Waverly
Hall, townspeople felt sure that German infiltrators had burned down the
beautiful structure. They were wrong; the heater had simply caught the
building on fire.
Then there are two shots of 272 Main, which
is Portland Country Market today. One comes from the town’s centennial
celebration in 1941. The supermarket is a decade old, and it houses not
only First National but Conklin’s Pharmacy as well. Ruth
Campbell, Dorothy Larson, "Mr. Conklin," Roland Conklin Jr.,
and James Natalie are standing out front, with Natalie holding
baby Billy Conklin. In the background, you can see a little gas
station, which is the featured object of the next picture.
That shot takes you back to 1929, just a
couple years before the supermarket was built. William R. Peterson’s
tiny Cape Cod-style gas station stands in the center of the picture. Where
the supermarket now stands is the "The Portland House,"
an old twin-chimney colonial probably built around 1800, and torn down
to put up the supermarket in 1931. This photo also features a 1929 Desoto
Touring Car, the only car on the street. It’s not the Portland you
know in the region of 272-276 Main!
So look for the Historical Society’s
calendar for 2002--they will be available at the upcoming Portland Fair,
from the Historical Society, Box 98, Portland CT 06480. Get yourself a
different view of Main Street, a sense of what it might have been like
to have lived a century or more ago. Then the next time you’re stuck
behind a left-turner or clogged bridge traffic, or parked and walking
to Dr. Lantos or Bordonaro’s, you will be able to let
your mind drift back in time to a quieter, leafier, gentler view…
(though you wouldn’t have polio shots or resuscitators or email…!)
