BANGOR, Me., the chief city of eastern Maine, is a port of entry and the seat of Penob scot County. The city is on the west bank of the Penobscot River, across its affluent the Ken duskeag, and at the head of navigation, about 28 miles from Penobscot Bay. It is on the Maine Central, Bangor & Aroostook and several other railroads, with steam and electric lines radiating in all directions; is on the main line from Boston to Saint John and Halifax, and also has direct steamship connection with Bos ton, being the terminus of the Bangor Division of the Eastern Steamship Company. Bangor is 76 miles northeast of Augusta, 137 miles north east of Portland and 246 miles from Boston. Pop. (1914), 26,061.
Trade and Commerce.— Situated near .the geographical centre of Maine and at the head of navigation on the largest river of the State, Bangor occupies a highly favored position and one destined to be even more commanding with the growth and development of the expansive territory north and east and tributary to her. As the shire town of Penobscot County, as the trade centre and shipping point of a large and rich agricultural section and for .many thriving iirdustrial communities; as a point of convergence for numerous important railway and steamship lines, and a conse.quent tarrying place for great numbers of tounsts, sportsmen and commercial travelers; these together with the busy commerce of its port, the metropoh tan character of its hotels and the compact ness of its business section, give to the city a much more populous appearance than the given fig-ures would indicate. Bangor has a fine harbor, easily accessible for vessels of large size. Although nearly 30 miles from the bay and 60 miles from the ocean, the tide rises about 17 feet, and there is a sufficient depth of water to float the largest of ocean steatnships. The Penobscot River, whose waters unite with those of the bay of the same name, is a noble water highway, rising 300 miles away amid the mountains and forests of north western Maine. In the 8,200 square miles drained by the Penobscot there are 1,604 tribu tary streams indicated on the State map, and 467 lakes and ponds. Bangor is one of the greatest lumber markets in the North, there being tributary to the city the great forests of spruce traversed by the Penobscot and down which the logs are floated; and has every sort of manufactory of wood and allied products,— saw, planing, wood pulp, and molding mills; factories of furniture, carriages, trunks, valises, agricultural implements, boots, shoes and moc casins, clothing, dairy products, etc., with iron
foundries, machine shops, shipyards, flour mills and pork-paclung establishments. Ice-cutting is also an important industry, Penobscot ice being exceptionally pure.
Manufactures and Industries.— Bangor's manufacturing establishments number in the vicinity of 300, embracing about 100 different lcinds of industries and employing several thousand hands. These figures are, however, inadequate to correctly portray the city's manu factunng interests, as many of the Important establishments are outside the city's limits. Therefore, while the manufactures of these mills are purely Bangor products, the plants themselves and rnost of the employees belong properly to other towns. In recent years pulp and paper manufacturing has made great ad vance and numerous pulp and paper mills are now in operanon along the Penobscot, from those of the Eastern Manufacturing Com pany at South Brewer to the immense plant of the Great Northern Paper Company at Milli nocket In recent years diversified manufactures have been multiplying and many and varied are the products of these establishments. Here is located a trunk manufacturing establish ment which shipped recently a whole train load of trunks, the largest shipment of trunlcs ever made by one manufacturer in this country or the world. There are located here great wood-working plants from whence go all over the country the finest designs in interior decora tions and architectural wood-working. The United States census of 1914 recorded 122 manufacturing establishments employing 1,614 persons, of whom 1,200 were wage earners, receiving $734,000 annually in wages. The cap ital engaged aggregated $3,450,000, and the value of the year's output was $3,557,000; of this, $1,605,000 was the value added by inanu facture.