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Coal Pockets Mack's Pt, Searsport, Me 120

From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection

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Coal Pockets Mack's Pt, Searsport, Me 120

This is an impressive view of a six-masted schooner docked at the Penobscot Coal and Wharf Company pier, which was developed and opened at Mack Point in 1905 by C.H. Sprague. The deep-water shipping port was served by steam-powered cranes (visible behind the schooner's masts) and special coal-carrying ships, such as this very large schooner in the image. Facilitated by the railroad, C.H. Sprague & Son purchased its own coal mines and fleet of specially designed vessels and became a major supplier of coal to the European allies during World War II. In this photograph the coal "pockets," or the coal containers on the tracks, are visible on the right, ready to be transported out by rail. [Ref. Museum in the Streets: Mack Point] [included in the exhibit "Working Waterfronts"]

Details

LB2007.1.110140
110140
City/Town:
Searsport 
State/Province:
Maine 
Country:
United States 
[included in the exhibit "Working Waterfronts"] Coal Pockets at Mack's Point, Searsport, Maine LB2007.1.110140 Seventy five and more years ago, coal heated Maine's houses and powered factories. About the same time as the Cape Jellison piers, the Bangor & Aroostook Railway set up a coal pier at Mack Point in Searsport, which is now an oil terminal. Here , on a winter day, a six-masted schooner, one of ten built, unloads coal into hopper cars which travel down the track to awaiting rail cars. By the 1930s, steam colliers had put the six masters and most of the smaller five and four-masted schooner out of the business. The bucket cranes, seen here, could also unload similar bulk cargos like salt and gypsum used in finishing paper. They were taken down in 2003.
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