The western end of Portland’s waterfront isn’t the only one getting a facelift these days. On the eastern end of Commercial Street, Casco Bay Lines has a gleaming new passenger terminal, and former PowerPay CEO Stephen Goodrich is investing millions to redevelop neighboring Maine Wharf, where celebrated restaurateur Dana Street’s new eatery is expected to open next spring.
Further east, the historic Portland Company complex is slated for rebirth as a mixed-use development of residences, offices and retail. And after a decade as a fenced-in weed farm, a key waterfront parcel at the corner of India Street and Commercial, long tied up in litigation, is finally on the market. (See the April 2012 That’s My Dump! for more on that property.)
Amidst this flurry of construction and reinvestment, it’s puzzling to see the charred stumps of old wharves from the 19th century sticking out of the bay on the eastern side of the new Ocean Gateway Terminal. According to Bill Needleman, the city’s waterfront coordinator, there are no plans to do anything with this dead forest of submerged pilings, though the lease agreement the city has with the state doesn’t prevent them from being removed.
The pilings once supported the Grand Trunk Wharves, built to help move people and goods between steamships and the eponymous railway nearby. The truly grand Grand Trunk Station, built in 1903, was demolished in 1966, but four years later a plan was hatched to revitalize this area.
The Maine Port Authority and Tepco — an aluminum smelting operation based in Berlin, N.H. — teamed up with the intention of turning the old wharves into a pier where container ships would offload aluminum pellets for storage in a former grain elevator nearby. But on July 27 of that year, a massive fire engulfed the entire complex. The Portland Evening Express reported that flames shot 100 feet into the air and smoke was visible 20 miles away. Among the witnesses to the blaze was Needleman.
“The fire is one of my first childhood memories,” he said. “Crowds of people stood on the streets of Munjoy Hill and watched [the wharves] burn. I was quite young, but I remember seeing the smoke, flames over the water, and a great sense of sadness from the crowd.”
The wharves and the plans for the container facility were both toast.
The Express quoted a policeman who said several people had been seen running away from the area shortly before the fire was reported. But investigators never did track down any arsonists.
Portland had an arson epidemic in the early ’70s. An Aug. 22, 1971 article in the Maine Sunday Telegram reported that of the 560 fires in the city the previous year, 79 were determined to have been deliberately set. The photo accompanying the story was of the unsolved Grand Trunk fire.
— Patrick Banks
