Maine

From the era of the indigenous Passamaquoddy people to the booming growth that led to its development as a 20th-century commercial hub, the history of Calais is distinctly American. Briefly settled by Europeans in 1604 when a French group that included Samuel de Champlain spent an ill-fated winter fraught with casualties, Calais's first permanent settlers arrived in 1779. As the lumber trade developed, the young city thrived in spite of its remote location. The first industrial railroad in the state was built in Calais in 1832 to fuel its development as the second-busiest port on the Eastern Seaboard, and soon, families like the Murchies and the Becketts were heavily involved in furthering local businesses. Lumber, shipbuilding, and granite quarrying each contributed to Calais's rise--as well as its gradual 20th-century decline as the respective industries collapsed. From a height of nearly 8,000 residents in 1900, Calais's population steadily dwindled to less than 3,000 today.

The Portland Company commenced operations in 1846 in Portland, Maine, under the leadership of John A. Poor. It was founded primarily to manufacture railroad locomotives for the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad. The company played a major role in the economy and development of the state of Maine and continued in business until 1982, producing a wide range of cast-metal and fabricated products.

The Portland Company manufactured a total of six hundred thirty steam locomotives, starting in 1848, along with hundreds of railroad cars, boilers, marine engines, ships, steam fire engines, elevators, and paper and textile mill equipment. Locomotives, ships, and cannons were built for the Civil War, and munitions were manufactured for both world wars. Later, the Portland Company produced snowplows, nuclear plant components, and common castings from manhole covers to streetlights. In the early 1900s, the company sold five makes of new automobiles and trucks. In this rich photographic history, the Portland Company and the city of Portland, with its great waterfront and industrial heritage, come to life.