Tales
Wacky tales of history, lore, and adventure.
TaleThe Sugar Beet Folly
A failed Ed Muskie-led attempt to create a sugar beet industry near Presque Isle that ultimately helped the Maine french fry business
TaleMolly Ockett: Last of the Pigwackets
A legendary Abenaki woman who traveled far and wide healing the sick and telling tales
TaleThe Sinking of the USS Eagle 56
It took 56 years to learn the truth about a Navy ship that was sunk off Cape Elizabeth by a German U-Boat
TaleElmer McCurdy – The Embalmed Bandit
A drunk crook from Maine had a successful second life as a preserved corpse in a circus side show
TaleDon’t Yank the Crank
There was public outcry when the last crank telephone system was shut down in Bryant Pond in 1983
TaleThe First Naked Reality Star
Joseph Knowles disappeared naked into the woods and emerged 2 months later as a star in bearskins
TaleThere’s Gold in Them There Oceans
A Baptist minister and his devious friends perpetrated a perfect scam in Lubec claiming they could extract unlimited gold from seawater
TaleVinalhaven’s Granite Legacy
The little island that helped build the nation
TaleElectric Tides
Franklin D. Roosevelt championed a bold project to dam the Bay of Fundy to generate power.
TaleThe Germans of Waldoboro
In the mid 1700’s, Germans were lured to Maine to settle Waldoboro and faced hardship, attacks, eviction, and even fought for the English in Cape Breton
TaleA Fatal Afternoon Hike
On a September afternoon in 1855, a 23 year-old Kennebunk woman took an ill-advised hike to the top of Mount Washington.
TaleNorridgewock Massacre
A nighttime massacre of an Abenaki village opened the Kennebec for English settlement and created a martyr of a controversial French missionary
TaleRow, Row, Row Your Nazis
Two Nazis, flush with cash and diamonds, were dropped off by U-Boat on a remote Maine beach to begin a WWII spy mission
TaleThe Ice King of Bath
Bath native C.W. Morse, was a ruthless businessman who built empires based on bribes, lies and fraud
TaleThe (Mis)adventures of the S.S. City of Rockland
The remarkably bad luck of a lovely steamship that traveled the Maine coast and rivers
TaleLes Raquetteurs – The Snowshoe Clubs of Lewiston
Snowshoe clubs brought thousands of visitors to Lewiston every other year for rollicking international conventions
TaleFan Jones and her Sky Blue House of Pleasure
How Bangor mocked the Maine Prohibition laws and allowed saloons and brothels to thrive in “Hell’s Half Acre”
TalePlenty of Politicians from Paris Hill
How a small hilltop village in rural Oxford County produced so many politicians
TaleCatholics and Diphtheria on the Androscoggin
Imported French Canadian workers grew Le Petit Canada in the shadow of a Brunswick mill
TaleMaine Civil Defense in the 1950s
How regular Mainers prepared for a possible Russian attack
TaleThe Pork and Beans War
Armed Aroostook lumberjacks, angry bears, the shores of Tripoli and Aaron Burr
TaleIf You Build It, Will They Come?
Amusement Parks, Hotels, Resorts and Zoos and the Trolleys that Connected Them
TaleYachts and Airplanes for Me, Scurvy and Death for You
A short history of religious cultism in Maine told through the stories of three Baptist pastors
TaleLandscape Architecture, Mutton Broth & The Pulitzer Prize
The extravagances and fallout of the Gilded Age through Maine connections
