Stonington Me. 53.

Stonington Me. 53.

"Stonington Me. 53." Image of the three story Hotel Stonington on Main Street. Three men and two women, probably the proprietor and staff, pose for the photographer on the front porch, seeming ready to greet tourists who began arriving on the island by steamboat in 1879. The harbor is behind the building. According to the Postcard History Series, "The Hotel Stonington...had 16 'sleeping rooms,' parlor, a lounging room, and a dining hall seating up to 40. The house boasted modern improvements: bathrooms, steam heat, hot and cold water, electric lights, and long-distance telephones. The host was J.H. Sweetser, who met all (steam) boats with his automobile. The hotel burned in 1919." Its Mansard roof, dormers, and large commercial windows, date the building to the 1870s or 80s, when the French Second Empire was the fashionable architectural trend in Maine. The building to the left is built out on the second and third stories to allow for foot passage back toward the waterfront behind. The Sunset House, advertising "Boarding and Lodging,", stands across the street at the far right. It was likely one of several such establishments serving the large immigrant populations of Italian, Swedish and Scottish stone workers employed in the area granite quarries. Next door to the hotel is a barber shop; note the horizontal as well as the vertical barber pole signs.