LB2007.1.72006

LB2007.1.72006

Post Office, Bangor Me. (9-26 25 # 5&6) Copyright Oct. 5-1925 ORIGINAL POST OFFICE Bangor's handsome Federal Building, housing the Custom House and Post Office, was begun in 1853 and completed in 1855. Designed by Ammi Burnham Young, who also designed the Vermont Capitol and the Boston Custom House, it rested on an island in the middle of the Kenduskeg stream and thus had to incorporate multiple facades and entrances. The ground floor is supported by "rusticated" piers and topped by lighter columns in a style designed to evoke the Renaissance instead of the Neoclassical designs popular at the time. Alfred Bult Mullet, then the United States Supervising Architect, designed an addition that was built in 1869. Although the building was designed with state-of-the-art fireproofing, involving brick arches, I-beams set in concrete and cast-iron columns, it was left a gutted shell in the wake of the Great Fire April 30, 1911 when embers from a hayshed near the Kenduskeag Stream ignited nearby buildings, sparking the great fire. The Great Fire of 1911 In 1911 Bangor experienced "The Great Fire" At 4:00 pm on Sunday April 30,1911 fire broke out in a large hay shed on lower Broad Street."Thousands of sparks, carried on the high wind, leaped the stream and ignited several sheds in the rear of Exchange Street businesses." 24 hours later Bangor had lost: 100 businesses, 267 dwellings, 8 churches, Post Office / Customs House, City Library, High School After the Great Fire of 1911, the City of Bangor hired Warren Manning, a Boston landscape architect, to provide a plan for the redevelopment of downtown, one third of which had been burned. He used Kenduskeag Stream as a key element in his proposed design. Bangor City Plan, the Burned District proposed the following: Norembega Hall (firebreak) , Washington St. bridge, Library & High School on Harlow St Civic center in city core. The Post Office in this view was built after the fire of 1911. Center Street Hill (right), was originally called "post office hill", and the locals called it Baptist Hill because the First Baptist Church, which was destroyed in the 1911 fire was there. In 1914 the U.S. Congress voted to buy the site and build what is now known as Bangor City Hall. It was originally known as the Federal Building which housed Federal Offices as well as the Post Office.