Seven miles of beautiful waterfront and a colorful legacy of famous residents and venerable industry have made Brewer a treasured and prosperous city for more than two hundred years. Since its founding in 1771 along the lower Penobscot River, Brewer has flourished in business and architecture, and yet has retained its scenic landscape. Brewer is a unique look at the development of this city. A wide range of photographs spanning a century and a half bring to life its vibrant history. Figures such as Gov. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who was also an important Civil War general, and Col. John Brewer, the early settler for whom the city is named, are among the residents highlighted. One image showcases the family home of Deacon John Holyoke, which some believe was a station on the Underground Railroad. Ice harvesting along the Penobscot River, brick making, and ship launchings are pictured, including the tiny 3-cent Bon Ton ferries that linked Brewer to Bangor before a second bridge was built. Fourth of July celebrations, soapbox derby races, and events like the devastating flood of 1902 are all captured in this enviable history.

Bangor is a city that has grown in many ways since Jacob Buswell and his family, the first white settlers, built their log cabin by the Penobscot River in 1769. Over the course of the nineteenth century, Bangor developed into a cosmopolitan center of Maine, but to this day it retains some of the proud characteristics of a town that was once the lumbering capital of the world. Collected in this fascinating visual history are over 200 photographs that together reflect the cityAa's rich and diverse history. The photographs show more than a century of change, with stirring images of four-masted schooners in the harbor, of log drives, of floods, and of fires. People fill the book: Amelia Earhart and Presidents Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Kennedy pictured on visit; the Brady Gang, shot by the FBI in 1937 as the nationAa's most wanted criminals; and especially the hardworking men and women who built Bangor into the Aa"Queen City of the East.Aa"