There’s a Portland Encyclopedia of the 60s, 70s, and 80s on Facebook that will be worth checking out!

Correct many towns had several villages each with various businesses and often a post office. Today most of those businesses are gone but the place names have endured. A few still have a variety stores and sometimes a post office.

Maine 😉

Wild ones grow white fur like that in the in the winter

My grandfather used to trap them when i was a kid. The fur only sells for about $2 at auction now because of Russian fur farming.

Oh yeah, that is true.

People didn't really commute a whole lot back then. You lived right next to or at where you work. Farmers lived in farms and grocers lived next to the grocery store.

Check out photographer John Duncan's book Take it Easy: Portland, Maine in the 1970s

Theaters were usually in larger towns and cities, like Ellsworth, Bangor, etc. So they were magnets that drew people from in and out of town.

Pubs relied on a mix of village residents, outlying folks on their occasional visit to the village, and travelers. Many pubs were inside, or near inns or boarding houses... Which in turn would be near the train station.

Old Soul Collective in the old Sign of the sun space. It’s amazing!

Check this out:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portland,Maine-Map_of_the_Horse_Rail_Lines_1883-1896.jpg#/media/File%3APortland%2C_Maine-_Map_of_the_Electric_Railway_Lines_1891-1914.jpg

What about social spaces in town, like theatres or pubs?

Also, what would commuting between towns or cities have been like pre-railroad?

You're so defensive about asserting you're not an ableist that you resorted to the old "send an automated Reddit message telling your opponent to get help" tactic. Which tells me you're fighting a losing battle and the losing part is on your end.

Whether you like it or not, the R slur has an accepted meaning within society, and that meaning just so happens to be a derogatory one as it pertains to the disabled--just as the word "ableist" has an accepted meaning within society that just so happens to mean "derogatory towards the disabled". Suck it up.

Take it or leave it. Either way, you've already lost the argument so I see no reason to continue further. Have fun with your deluded beliefs.

A lot of our towns are spread out because of agriculture. Either you're farming your land, which spreads you out.. or you've got your own spot on the coast for your fishing boat, which strings people along the shoreline.

150 years ago, you would find that every town had its own small grocer, dry goods/ general store, etc. It's not like today, where you might have to drive a half hour or more to the nearest supermarket.

There also wasn't the habit of stopping by the store to grab what you need for dinner tonight. You grew or caught much of what you needed when you were out on a farm or fishing, and only went to town for the stuff you didn't have. You went into town once a week for church, and then maybe once a month to shop. Otherwise, you were working your own land, and mostly interacting with the families farming around you.

The other pre-automobile factor you're not considering is the railroad. Before cars really took over, trains connected nearly every community to one another. Look around, you'll see tons of defunct rail lines crisscrossing the state. If you had to really travel, odds are a railroad had a stop within ten miles. From there, you'd take the train to Brunswick, Bangor, Lewiston, Portland, Boston, etc.

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Lol you are right, I responded to the wrong thread

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Stuff usually opens up again after Memorial Day. Yankee and Downeast magazines both have a lot of trip planning resources and ideas. I would start there.

Tyler Tech is building a new office in Orono actually, they are hoping to build a pipeline for software engineers and related stuff.

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He scream

Only a little annex is open in Bangor so far! Please don't make it your reason to visit Bangor, it is a single room the size of a one-car garage with a very few exhibits and a handful of books and T shirts on sale. I am NOT hating on it (I really like it in fact) but it takes all of 5-10 minutes to go through, and I'd hate for you to get your hopes up and be disappointed. The main museum is still open in Portland but I believe will be relocating to Bangor through 2023, opening in Bangor in 2024. I'm hoping to get a job or volunteer there once it does :D

I’m trying to find out who’s more stupid, the driver who hit the pole or the family that drove 1.5 hours to see it

this is freaking awesome!