Main St., So. Bristol Me.

Main St., So. Bristol Me.

Main St., So. Bristol Me. 49 c.1919 One wonders if, when the Eastern Illustrating photographer set his camera up in the middle of the road on that summer day in 1911, he knew he was going to take one of the finest "Main Street" images in the Company's catalog. The road is, today, Route 129 just as you come on to Rutherford Island and view is to the north over an earlier Gut swing bridge to the mainland beyond. Look carefully, there are twenty two people in the picture, fifteen buildings, four business signs, an ice wagon, a wooden swing bridge and the car belonging to the photographer. Stand in the on spot today, squint up your eyes and you can see just about the same scene. All but two of the buildings are still there although some are much altered. E. W. Gamage's store, the second building from the left and the barn with the open door in the center are the missing structures. The bridge is the great-grandfather of the current Gut bridge which doesn't look that much different. Even the Thompson Ice Company - that's the back of their wagon you see just beyond Gamage's store- exists as the Thompson Ice House Preservation Society. Keep looking and the bridge will open as it did in 1911. But the car has been driven off, you will notice, and, of course, the people have all vanished. Perhaps the blurring of some of them hints at that mortality: The scene is still there but that time and place, captured in this picture, have gone. By the way, there is no "Main Street" in South Bristol village. This little stretch of road was simply called "the Bridge" then and still is. David Andrews, South Bristol Historical Society