Foundation of city's first railroad station unearthed

By KELLEY BOUCHARD, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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Staff photo by John Ewing A chunk of brick arch is shown Monday at the future site of the Ocean Gateway cruise-ship terminal in Portland. In the mid-1800s, the city built brick arches on mudflats at Fore and India streets to support its railroad's first buildings and tracks.

WATERFRONT EVOLUTION WANT TO LEARN more about the expansion and evolution of Portland's waterfront, from the Fore River to Back Cove? That's the subject of an exhibition at the University of Southern Maine through July 31. WHAT: "The Changing Peninsula: Two Centuries of Portland Maps and City Views." WHERE: Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, Glickman Family Library, University of Southern Maine, 314 Forest Ave., Portland. WHEN: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Call 780-4850 to confirm hours during summer vacation. COST: Free. To top of story

Construction of the Ocean Gateway cruise-ship terminal on Portland's eastern waterfront has unearthed the history of how the area was filled and developed as a railroad and shipping hub in the late 1840s.

Workers for Reed & Reed Inc. of Woolwich, the firm hired to build the $21 million terminal, have excavated several massive brick arches while laying drainage pipes for the extension of Commercial and Hancock streets.

City officials say the arches formed the foundation of the first terminal building in Portland for the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, which started construction in 1846 and began operating in 1853.

By that time, the line was part of the Grand Trunk Railway System. It connected Portland to Montreal over 292 miles of track and gave Canada a year-round port for grain and other products.

The city built an estimated half-acre field of brick arches on mudflats at Fore and India streets to support the railroad's first buildings and tracks. It's unclear whether the early railroad buildings had basements, but the area around the arches was eventually filled, said Jeffrey Monroe, Portland's director of ports and transportation.

Fore Street used to be the city's waterfront, before it was filled in the 1850s to create Commercial Street. Tracks eventually ran down the center of Commercial to connect the Grand Trunk line to the former Portland, Saco and Portsmouth Railroad, later the Boston and Maine, which had a terminal at the base of State Street.

The tops of the brick arches are about 4 feet below ground, Monroe said. The arches are about 6 feet wide, about 10 feet tall and spaced about 20 feet apart. An exact count of arches and their precise measurements is unavailable.

"Unless you dig up the whole area, you're not going to be able to know exactly what's down there," Monroe said Monday.

Large chunks of the brick arches will be displayed at Ocean Gateway when it's completed in November 2007, he said.

The city and the Maine Department of Transportation started building Ocean Gateway last fall. Until recently, most of the work focused on demolition, utility installation and pier construction. Steel beams for the terminal's passenger-receiving station started going up last week, Monroe said.

Because the project includes federal transportation money, the Maine Historic Preservation Commission conducted an archaeological survey of the area in 2001. The survey found no properties that should be protected by the National Historic Preservation Act, said Earle Shettleworth Jr., the commission's director.

Fort Loyal and other early buildings were built nearby in the 1600s and 1700s, but they were long gone by the 1840s, according to the survey report.

Still, finding the brick arches provides an opportunity to understand how the city's waterfront and economy changed through the years.

The first terminal building was a modest structure that likely served as a passenger and freight depot, Monroe said. It was replaced, and likely torn down, soon after larger passenger and freight depots were built nearby, as well as an engine house and grain elevators.

A Victorian-style, pink granite passenger depot was built at India and Fore streets in 1903 and was torn down in 1966.

The Grand Trunk office building still stands at India and Commercial streets and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Reed & Reed workers also have dug up various concrete footings that were built below ground for later passenger depots, grain elevators and freight depots. They show the evolution of waterfront construction techniques, ranging from concrete fortified with large chunks of granite to modern steel rebar.

"It's been very intriguing," said Daniel Reed, a state engineer. "I already knew the history of the site, so I knew there'd be all kinds of stuff down there."

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at: