From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
LB2007.1.109645
Belfast, Maine View of the northern end of the Belfast waterfront: From the far left the Coe-Mortimer Fertilizer plant's wharf and barge loading facility. To the right is the sardine factory and the old lower bridge. In front of the sardine factory, along Front Street, one can see one of the early gravity-feed bulk oil tanks, of which there were several more in later years. To the right is the Puddle Dock area prior to it being filled in and used by the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad. COE-MORTIMER FERTILIZER PLANT: The Coe-Mortimer Fertilizer plant was built on the Belfast waterfront north of the lower bridge in 1909. By January of 1910 barges were bringing raw phosphate and limestone rock in through the draw of the lower bridge. Six railroad cars a day left Belfast with bags, and later locally-made barrels, filled with fertilizer. In 1914, Coe-Mortimer employed 110. Morris Slugg was the plant superintendant when they switched from barrels to bags in the 1920s. Coe-Mortimer halted operations during the depression. The plant was torn down in 1938 and parts shipped to the company's plant in Searsport. Jim Mendelson and Ben Higer bought the property in 1946, established Maplewod Poultry and began processing chickens. This seemed to be an ideal place for it with the railroad, cheap labor and the bay available to dump feathers, blood and viscera cheeply. Later, the facility was acquired by the Starrett's Penobscot Frozen Foods to process potatoes and today operates as Penobscot - McCrum. SARDINE FACTORY: Originally, "sardines" a different fish, were a luxury item imported from Russia. In the late 19th century, juvenile herring caught in weirs in the Lubec area were being canned and called "sardines". They caught on and by 1910, the Lubec Sardine Company had built four plants in Eastport and Lubec. As supplies of the herring became scarce in the area, the owners (Messrs Pike and Peacock) looked to expand in the Penobscot Bay area. To this end they built the plant in Belfast and began canning in August of 1911.
