Here For Generations:
The Story of a Maine Bank and its City
By Dean Lawrence Lunt
Introduction by Stephen King
$24.95
Hardcover, 352 pages, 6x9, 85 photographs, Maine Nonfiction
ISBN: 0-9671662-6-8
Search for a specific Islandport Press title
Also by Dean Lunt:
Hauling By Hand: The Life and Times of a Maine Island
REVIEWS
"Well-indexed and finely bound and printed, 'Here for Generations' is
destined to become the quintessential reference book on Bangor."
Bangor Daily News
"Lunt is a polished and entertaining writer who has done his homework. ... (H)e makes these subjects interesting."
Central Maine Newspapers
ABOUT THE BOOK
Here for Generations: The Story of a Maine Bank and its City tells the remarkable tale of a town and a bank that have moved in concert for 150 years. It captures their sweeping history through triumph and tragedy and brings to life the fascinating people and events that have shaped their journey.
The bank's roots were set in the 1830s, when the bustling city of
Bangor lured the best and the brightest of Maine's adventurers to its
port and commercial center. Bangor was the Lumber Capital of the World,
complete with all the intrigue of a riverfront boomtown-potential riches
and busted dreams, wealthy lumber barons and rowdy lumbermen and
sailors. Among those who arrived in this city on the rise were Elijah L.
Hamlin, Joseph Wheelwright, and twenty-two other men. Most came from
humble origins, but all came with a dream. Through hard work and vision
they built businesses and institutions and emerged as the city's great
leaders.
In 1852, these public spirited men of substance - businessmen,
lawyers, artisans, and merchants - came together in a philanthropic
effort to create Bangor Savings Bank, an entity designed to help the
city's poor and its working men and women save money. Encouraging thrift
was considered good for society during an era when there were no
pensions, no unemployment checks, no social security, and no disability
insurance. At that time most banks were strictly commercial ventures,
aimed at businesses and designed to make money for investors.
Together, Bangor Savings Bank and Bangor have seen the rise and fall
of the great lumber economy and survived the economic depression of the
1870s that nearly killed the bank. They experienced the Flood of 1902,
rebuilt following the Great Fire of 1911, and hung tough during the
Great Depression. And they watched the city become the region's premier
service and retail hub.
Here you will find all the details of that drama, from the city's
founding by Jacob Buswell, to the grand dreams of railroad evangelist
John A. Poor, to the rise of Freese's as the Fifth Avenue in Maine, to
the opening of the Bangor Mall. And you will also find the bank's rise
from its simple origin as a nineteenth-century repository for Bangor
widows, orphans, and daily laborers to a statewide leader in the
twenty-first century - a prime source of financial services, mortgages,
and the capital that fuels the economic engine of the Pine Tree State.
It has been a remarkable ride.
EXCERPT
“
There was perhaps no better place to be in Maine, perhaps no better
place to be in New England, than Bangor during the 1830s. The city was alive.
It danced forward with an almost outsized sense of destiny and dreamed of not
simply standing as a rival to Portland, but as a rival to Boston and New York.
Queen City of the East was not some marketing slogan; it was a quest, even a destiny.
People talked of building an eastern San Francisco on the Penobscot.
”