Portland Harbor Museum News and Events

Play "Heroes and Shipwrecks"

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Notes from the winter issue of the PORTLAND HARBOR BEACON

Executive Director, Mark R. Thompson, addressed the issue of relocating Portland Harbor Museum. "Most importantly," he said, "we have to be in a location that the public--our members local residents, and people from away--can find." A number of possible locations have been considered and discussed with property owners and developers.

The museum recently received a $2130 grant from the Rines/Thompson Fund of the Maine Community Foundation to assist with the cost of the museum's 2007 lecture series.

Portland Harbor Museum's Homefront Veterans Oral history project aired in December on local station WMPG-FM. Area residents who worked in the South Portland shipyards were inteviewed. Remaining episodes are scheduled for January 11 , 7:30 am and 7:30 pm, and January 14 at 5:00 pm.

The museum's new exhibit, Picturing Portland: A Century of Change, will open in April and run until November 2007. The exhibit will pair photos from the musem's Angell collection with contemporary shots of the same locations.

The twelfth class of Portland's History Docents starts in February. The program is offered free to people interested in leading tours at local musuems, including PHM. To learn more about the program call the museum at 799-6337. To enroll contact manager, Bill Hall at 253-6290 or leave a message at Greater Portland Landmarks at 744-5561, ext 120.

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Bill Wincapaw, one of Maine's pioneer aviators, felt he owed a lot to lighthouse keepers along Penobscot Bay. On mercy missions during murky weather to ferry sick islanders to the mainland hospital their beacons guided him to safe landings at the Rockport airport..........Jeremy D'Entremont, vice-president of Friends of Flying Santa, and final 2006 PHM lecturer, relates the story of seven decades of Flying Santa Christmas drops to lighthouses along the New England coast.

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When Moses Greenleaf, Maine's first map maker surveyed Maine resources in the 1820s he had a theory that Native American place names could provide clues to valuable resources. The Aabanaki place name for a hill near Brownville, Maine sounded something like "Moonalungua" and translated to "fire paint." Since iron ore oxidizes when exposed to air and forms red ochre Greenleaf was convinced that a source of iron lay in the shadow of Mt. Katahdin. The fascinating story of Maine's first iron mine continues.

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Maine Sunday Telegram July 30, 2006
Harbor Museum Outgrows Its Shell

SOUTH PORTLAND - Outside its doors, the Portland Harbor Museum has everything a museum dedicated to the history of the harbor could want: a lighthouse, an old fort and lots of ships. It's the inside of the museum that's lacking. "As much as I am spoiled by being able to look out my office window and see Fort Gorges and the lighthouse and tankers, it's much more important that we have an adequate facility," said the museum's executive director, Mark Thompson.
The small museum, a fixture on South Portland's waterfront for about two decades, has decided to look for a new home because its old one is too small,The museum - whose focus is on how Portland Harbor has shaped and influenced Portland and surrounding communities - needs more space for showing and storing its collection, Thompson said.
Its cramped exhibit space limits its display of its unique marine artifacts, he said. The museum's collection includes a large section of the only surviving clipper ship in America, the Snow Squall, built in Maine in 1851.
Thompson said the museum also wants to become more handicapped-accessible and offer amenities such as a room for children's activities, more community meeting space, a larger gift shop and possibly a reading room with a library of maritime-related texts.
"I think it's important for museums in the 21st century to engage the community and we need to have the space to do that," Thompson said.
The search currently is focused on two sites in the Portland waterfront area, Thompson said. However, he declined to give details because he said talks are too preliminary.
The museum had hoped to remain at its current Spring Point location on the campus of Southern Maine Community College by building on to the 3,400-square-foot building it leases from the college.
But Thompson said that to raise the funds necessary to construct the 11,000-square-foot building the museum has determined it needs, it would have to have the guarantee of a 40-year to 50-year lease.
However, the state-owned college was only able to offer a five-year lease, said SMCC President James Ortiz. Although the college has always welcomed the museum as an educational addition to its campus, the school is rapidly growing and can't make such a long-term commitment for a site it may need itself, Ortiz said.
"It would be giving up land that is very valuable and which we may at one point have some other use for," he said. The college serves 4,500 students at its Fort Road campus and at various satellite locations such as the Maine Mall and Bath, he said.
The relationship remains cordial on both sides, Thompson and Ortiz said. The museum, which has an annual operating budget of about $200,000, currently has an open-ended year-to-year lease for the building.
"We said stay as long as you want," Ortiz said.
Thompson said a move is at least two or three years away because after a site is located, a capital campaign must get underway.
Although the museum is not ruling out other locations, Portland would be a natural home, Thompson said. Founded in 1985, the museum changed its name in 1999 from the Spring Point Museum to better reflect its focus on Portland Harbor.
Also, a Portland location would draw more visitors than the current tucked-away location on Fort Road does, Thompson said. The museum, situated just a stone's throw from the breakwater leading to Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse, currently attracts about 30 to 50 walk-in visitors per day in the summer, and also is visited by bus tour groups.
Thompson acknowledged, however, that it will be hard to find a new site with the stunning visual amenities the museum has now. "We do have an incredible view," he said.

Re-enactors Set Up Camp at Portland Harbor Museum

Re-enactors from Company A, 3rd Maine Regiment Volunteer Infantry set up camp on the grounds of Portland Harbor Museum on Sunday, May 21, 2006. Company A is a nonprofit educational and living history organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Maine's role in the American Civil War. Through living history demonstrations and educational presentations, the Company's members demonstrate what life was like for Maine soldiers and civilians during the Civil War years. Company A hoisted the colors at the museum at 10:00 a.m. and engaged in the typical activities of a Civil War regiment throughout the day including inspection, drills, marching, and bayonet practice.

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Portland in Flames

James Leamon presented the first in the museum's series of five lectures to accompany the museum's current exhibit. Professor Leamon described the British Naval attack on Portland on October 18, 1775

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Share Your WWII Memories

If you or someone you know worked in the shipyards in South Portland, Maine, or lived in the vicinity of the South Portland shipyards during World War II, then WMPG-FM of Greater Portland and Portland Harbor Museum of South Portland want you to share your memories.

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Portland Pipeline