An image of the Portland waterfront c1900. Image from the Maine Historical Society’s Maine Memory MMN#13916
is our historic waterfront at Risk?
Portland’s central waterfront extends along the south side of Commercial Street, from Deake’s Wharf in the west to Maine Wharf in the east. This central zone has been a significant economic and cultural asset for over 350 years. It is the largest resource for commercial vessel berthing in Portland Harbor, sitting between the western waterfront (featuring deep sea berthing and dedicated to freight and industrial uses) and the eastern waterfront (a transportation hub with facilities for cruise ships and ferries). The central waterfront is the heart of our tourism industry as well as the core of the city’s working waterfront.
Figure 1. Portland’s waterfront in 1776. Courtesy of Rosemary Mosher and Osher Map Library.
Figure 2. NOAA’s projected inundation map of Portland with a ten-foot surge.
The central waterfront we know today is filled land, built to facilitate a railroad connection between the east and west ends of the city. This makes the area particularly vulnerable to increased storm surges, high tide events, and projected sea level rise. Modern flood and storm surge projections show the extent of possible flood waters mirrors the known historical shape of the peninsula. A composite map showing the peninsula’s coastline in 1776 versus today (Figure 1) is closely replicated by NOAA’s Sea Level Rise Viewer when predicting a ten-foot surge in sea level (Figure 2). NOAA classifies the entire central waterfront as “highly vulnerable”.
Figure 3. Tidal flooding on Portland Pier has been occurring for many years.
A 2013 Flooding Vulnerability Assessment for the Commercial Street waterfront area predicted the cumulative expected storm damage to the value of all buildings and improvements between 2013 and 2050 to reach $32.9 million. According to that assessment, in 2050, buildings on every wharf from the Portland Fish Pier to the Maine State Pier are vulnerable to significant damage. Buildings on Widgery Wharf and Portland Pier, two of the Central Waterfront’s most historic wharves, are at risk of being permanently inundated due to sea level rise by 2050. Portland Pier (which has some of the Central Waterfront’s most historic structures), has historically been particularly prone to flooding (Figure 3).
Early History of Central Waterfront - Infilling and the Creation of COMMERCIAL Street
Figure 4. From a 1826 manuscript map titled Portland with a view of the different streets by Lemuel Moody (1767-1846) features the city streets and designations, as well as buildings, wharves and rope walks. Portland wharves extend from Fore Street, then the shore line along the central waterfront.
By the end of the eighteenth century, Portland was a booming center of trade, supported by its lumber trade and fisheries as well as the rise of the molasses trade. Trade with the West Indies became quite lucrative for Portland, who exported a wide array of wood products in exchange for the sweetening agent. Molasses was a common dietary staple and used in rum production.
The area around today’s central waterfront was a bustling commercial and cultural center. Merchants and tradesmen relied on the sea to ship and trade cotton, flour, salt, fish, tobacco, wine, rye, glass, and lumber in several forms. Store owners, shipbuilders, blockmakers, silversmiths, blacksmiths, and distillers operated on the waterfront. At the time, the wharves that had sprung up following the Revolution were breastworks, or rudimentary docks made of piled lumber, rubble, and stones. A more substantial, permanent wharf was required to accommodate traffic coming in and out of the harbor.
In 1793, a group of 25 sea captains and merchants formed a group, calling themselves the “Proprietors of Union Wharf.” They set out to build an appropriate structure on a breastworks that sat at the foot of Union Street. The resulting wharf had no comparison in the harbor. The 110-foot wide structure sat upon a base of rocks, dirt, and other fill material, which supported massive oak pilings covered with wooden planks. Over 3,500 tons of lumber was used to construct the wharf, which boasted a 48-foot-wide passageway through its center. The wharf was promptly populated with ten or so businesses. Other wharves quickly took form and by 1806 Portland had emerged as the sixth largest seaport in the country.
Figure 5. Portland Public Works overlay maps circa 2001 depict the evolution of the Portland waterfront. The blue lines depict the original shoreline close to Fore Street.
The mid-eighteenth century and the rise of railroads brought about the most dramatic physical transformation of the waterfront’s history. Access to Canadian ports was limited during the winter months due to the St. Lawrence River freezing over. In an attempt to lure Canadian trade to Portland, Board of Trade leader John A. Poor spearheaded the effort to extend Canada’s Grand Trunk Railway from Montreal to Portland. Poor espoused Portland Harbor’s natural advantages and the half-day of travel time that could be saved by choosing it over Boston or New York. The Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad, later taken over by the Grand Trunk, brought car loads of grain to Portland from Canada and the West for reshipment.
In order to link the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway to the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth Railroad terminal at the foot of High Street and Portland’s wharves, city’s leaders agreed to build a new road with tracks down its center running perpendicular to the waterfront’s docks. Completed in 1853 for $80,000, Commercial Street was 100 feet wide and nearly a mile long, and was constructed on filled land in the harbor east of Fore Street (which originally followed the shoreline). The road was constructed through the middle of existing wharves, and obscured smaller wharves completely (Figure 6). As a result, businesses that were once dockside now had a new street between them and the water, and other lots were lost completely. Wharves lost hundreds of feet of berthing space and building space.
Figure 6. An 1852 map of Portland shows the construction of Commercial Street on the Waterfront before the land between Fore and Commercial Streets was completely filled in.
Figure 7. On an 1858 Map of Portland, just five years after the completion of Commercial Street, five wharves (Union, Dana’s (Merrill’s), Brown’s, Smith’s, and Berlin Mills) had built connecting tracks to take advantage of increased trade opportunities.
On new or extended wharves, businesses quickly took advantage of the presence of the new railroad along the waterfront. Within five years of Commercial Street’s completion, connecting tracks were built down the lengths of several wharves (Figure 7). Canada’s grain was exported from the port, while lumber, shipbuilding, molasses, and fish remained important industries.
The wharves on the central waterfront were all constructed as working piers (as opposed to pleasure piers), specifically intended for the docking, loading, and unloading of vessels. The area’s wharves are largely fill supported, often with wood pylons supporting the apron (outer edge) and terminating end, farthest from Commercial Street. Wharf builders obviously made use of Maine’s abundant supply of granite and pine during their construction. Structures on the wharves vary drastically in scale from 100,000 square-foot masonry factories to 8-by-10-foot wood-frame fish houses. From early images we know that many wharves were paved with granite paving blocks.
The 20th Century - A crumbling waterfront
Portland’s waterfront at the turn of the century was populated by ferry terminals, steamship docks, lumber yards, coal companies, cooperages, and cold storage facilities.
Figure 8. Portland Cold Storage Co. circa 1905.
Portland Cold Storage Co. was located at 188 Commercial Street on Central (now Chandler's) Wharf. Founded in 1905, the cold-storage firm was managed by James C. Poole (1845-1924) of Boothbay Harbor (Figure 8, pictured standing at left). In 1915, Poole formed another cold storage company on Union Wharf. Train tracks allowed rail cars to be loaded and unloaded right outside the storage building.
Figure 9. A 1900 advertisement for Berlin Mills Co lumber yard and planing mills. Upper right is now Gowen Marine/Portland Yacht Services (Becky's Diner would be to the left of the image). Image to lower right is at the north corner of High and Commercial Streets, now the Rufus Deering Lumber/Hobson’s Landing development.
On the western end of the central waterfront was a large lumber yard, the Berlin Mills Company. In 1851 the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad, later changing its name to Grand Trunk Railway, entered Berlin, New Hampshire. The chance to build a saw mill in Berlin came in 1852 when a group of Portland, Maine businessmen, John B. Brown, Josiah S. Little, Nathan Winslow and Hezekiah Winslow, recognized that the construction of the railroad line through Berlin was a great way to import and export wood products in and out of town. Acquiring water, timber and rail rights, they formed a partnership under the name H. Winslow & Company, which changed its name to Berlin Mills Company in 1868. In Portland the company had a planing mill and wharf for shipping lumber.
In 1889 the Canadian Pacific Railway opened a rail line across the state of Maine from Montreal to Saint John, New Brunswick, transferring the majority of Canada’s transatlantic passenger and cargo shipping to the Saint John during the winter months. This resulted in a loss of Canadian trade revenue in Portland, and Portland lost its standing as a leading regional seaport. The Great Depression in the 1930s caused additional hardship on Portland’s waterfront.
World War II briefly gave the city and its waterfront an economic boost. Portland Harbor became the base of the entire North Atlantic fleet, complete with 30,000 shipyard workers and anchorages filled with Naval destroyers and support vessels. Waterfront merchants profited from the presence of shipyard workers and sailors on leave. However the economic boom of the war years quickly dissipated when military activities ended.
A 1961 Portland Press Herald series, “Our Crumbling Waterfront,” painted a stark picture of the port, describing rotting pylons, empty buildings, and an economic slump. A focus on downtown redevelopment in the Urban Renewal period of the ‘60s and ‘70s, left no little to no funds to devote to the waterfront. A 1978 National Science Foundation study described Portland’s waterfront as one of the most decrepit on the east coast. The following year, voters and public officials were sympathetic to the waterfront’s plight and approved a $9 million bond to help pay for fish piers in Portland.
Spurred by the completion of the Portland Fish Pier in 1983, new construction projects replaced deteriorating piers and rotting pilings across the waterfront. Condominium construction on Chandler’s Wharf in 1985 and at 40 Portland Pier in 1987 as well as other development proposals led to a 1987 moratorium on all development along the waterfront that was non-marine related. The moratorium was overwhelming approved by Portland voters who wanted to protect the working waterfront from non-marine uses. Since the mid 1980s, the city has been challenged to balance protecting fishing and other maritime industries while also promoting a flexible and varied waterfront for non-marine businesses and development.
Will the waterfront’s future look like its past?
A 2018 inventory of the waterfront observed that the central waterfront remains a center for marine industry, but continues to evolve as permitted under current land use policies. According to the City’s Comprehensive Plan Portland 2030, there has been significant contraction of the waterfront economy and the ground fishing industry on the central waterfront since the 1990s. Ground fishing vessels have diminished by 50% and there has been a 2/3 reduction in landings at the Portland Fish Exchange. The area has also experienced decreasing water depth at the piers due to natural deposition of sediments, which are exacerbated by storm water overflows into the harbor, requiring maintenance dredging to ensure quality commercial berthing opportunities.
Additional planning initiatives for the central waterfront in the City’s comprehensive plan include: investing in pier infrastructure, and exploring funding for pier maintenance; promoting access to the waterfront for commercial and marine activity, including berthing; supporting traditional and emerging marine industries, requiring collaboration with private pier and waterfront property owners to implement policies that promote and protect the marine economy; and planning for climate change.
If the prediction maps are correct, sea level rise needs to be part of the conversation about the future of development along Commercial Street and on the waterfront. Its historic buildings, infrastructure, and its uses, that are so integral to our city’s character and economy are in danger. Public and private leadership, like that which led to the creation of Commercial Street, is necessary to develop comprehensive planning strategies that will guide owners as they assess the risk to their waterfront assets and to direct investments into more resilient infrastructure. Part of the solution will also need the City’s technical standards and land use code to allow for adaptive construction techniques, storm water infrastructure and utilities, site protection, and floodproofing.
At Landmarks we are focused on collaboration and broad public engagement initiatives with other organizations working to raise awareness of the issue as well as developing proactive and sustainable solutions. You can learn more about our work on our website or take a short virtual tour of the waterfront. Stay tuned for upcoming events this summer that will celebrate the history of our waterfront and how historic preservation and the conservation of existing resources are key to developing a strategy of resiliency, risk management and adaptation which will guide changes on the waterfront in the future.
This fall, Greater Portland Landmarks will host a series of panel discussions about the unprecedented challenges to Maine’s cultural and natural heritage due to our changing climate. Bringing together organizations and community leaders, Staying Above Water will highlight the impact climate change is already having on historic buildings and discuss strategies for future adaptation. Landmarks will publish a booklet of case studies later this summer that explore the impacts of a changing climate on a variety of local building types and suggest mitigation strategies for property owners. We hope you will join us!
by Julie Ann Larry, from research compiled by Tova Mellen in 2019.