Bangor, Maine

The first documented European exploration of the area was conducted by Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese navigator in Spanish service, in 1524.

Samuel de Champlain followed in 1605.

The Jesuits established a mission on Penobscot Bay in 1609 as part of the French colony of Acadia.

=== Early settlement === European settlement began in 1769 when Jacob Buswell established a community at the future site of Bangor.

By 1772, twelve families lived in the settlement alongside a sawmill, store, and school.

== Name and pronunciation == Founded as Kenduskeag Plantation in 1791, Bangor was incorporated as a town in 1834.

=== Revolutionary War and War of 1812 === During the American Revolutionary War, Bangor played a role in the Penobscot Expedition of 1779.

The Bangor Theological Seminary, founded in 1814, was the only accredited graduate school of religion in northern New England.

The city has an unbroken history of newspaper publishing extending from 1815.

Maine remained part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until 1820, when it was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise.

==== Pandemics ==== In 1832, a cholera epidemic in Saint John, New Brunswick, (part of the Second cholera pandemic) sent as many as eight hundred poor Irish immigrants walking t...

Richard Upjohn, British-born architect and early promoter of the Gothic Revival style, received some of his first commissions in Bangor, including the Isaac Farrar House (1833),...

Realizing the need for a police force, the town incorporated as The City of Bangor in 1834.

John's Church (Episcopal, 1836–1839).

This architectural heritage contributed to Bangor's nickname, "The Queen City of the East." The Aroostook War of 1838–1839, a boundary dispute between the United States and Brit...

In 1844, the first ocean-going iron-hulled steamship in the United States was named The Bangor.

However, on its second voyage in 1845, the ship burned near Castine.

Bangor's worst ice-jam floods occurred in 1846 and 1902.

In 1849–50, the Second cholera pandemic reached Bangor itself, killing 20–30 within the first week, 112 had died by October 1849.

the first to prohibit the sale of alcohol, with the passage of the "Maine law" in 1851), Bangor managed to remain "wet".

Finance: The Bangor Savings Bank, founded in 1852, is Maine's largest independent bank; as of 2013, it had more than $2.8 billion in assets and the largest share of the 13-bank ...

A late outbreak of the disease in 1854 killed seventeen others.

Bangor's Hinkley & Egery Ironworks (later Union Ironworks) developed a steam engine called the "Endeavor" that won a gold medal at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1856.

By 1860, Bangor had become the world's largest lumber port.

In 1861, a mob attacked the offices of the Bangor Daily Union, a Democratic newspaper whose editor Marcellus Emery held Southern sympathies.

The 1st Maine Heavy Artillery Regiment, also mustered in Bangor, suffered the highest casualties of any Union regiment during the war, particularly at the Second Battle of Peter...

== Education == Universities and colleges The University of Maine (originally The Maine State College) was founded in Orono in 1868.

==== Rail accidents ==== 1869: The Black Island Railroad Bridge north of Old Town, Maine collapsed under the weight of a Bangor and Piscataquis Railroad train, killing 3 crew an...

1871: A bridge in Hampden collapsed under the weight of a Maine Central Railroad train approaching Bangor, killing 2 and injuring 50.

In 1872, a smallpox epidemic closed local schools.

The Bangor Daily News was founded in 1889, and is one of the few remaining family-owned newspapers left in the United States.

The city had 142 saloons in 1890.

Beal University was founded in 1891 and offers degrees in nursing, healthcare, business and more.

Long-term temperature records show a gradual warming since 1894, which may have reduced the ice-jam flood potential at Bangor.

1898: A Maine Central Railroad train crashed near Orono killing 2 and fatally injuring 4.

Train Wrecked in Maine 1899: The collapse of a gangway between a train and a waiting ferry at Mount Desert sent 200 members of a Bangor excursion party into the water, drowning 20.

Prohibitionist Carrie Nation had been forcibly expelled from the Bangor House hotel in 1902 after causing a disturbance.

Of the 205 Black citizens who lived in Bangor in 1910, over a third were originally from Canada.

The subsequent rebuilding created an architectural showcase featuring diverse styles including Mansard, Beaux-Arts, Greek Revival, and Colonial Revival, now preserved as the Gre...

In 1913, the war of the "drys" (prohibitionists) on "wet" Bangor escalated when the Penobscot County Sheriff was impeached and removed by the Maine Legislature for not enforcing...

A third sheriff was removed by the governor in 1918, but promptly re-nominated by the Democratic Party.

Created in 1927 as a commercial field, it was taken over by the U.S.

Since 1931, Bangor has had a council–manager form of government.

In October 1937, "public enemy" Al Brady and another member of his "Brady Gang" (Clarence Shaffer) were killed in the bloodiest shootout in Maine's history.

Extreme temperatures range from −32 °F (−36 °C) on February 10, 1948, up to 104 °F (40 °C) on August 19, 1935.

Bangor has a large fiberglass-over-metal statue of mythical lumberman Paul Bunyan by Normand Martin (1959).

Passenger rail service was discontinued by the BAR in 1961.

A 1962 bronze commemorating the 2nd Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment by Wisconsin sculptor Owen Vernon Shaffer stands at the entrance to Mount Hope Cemetery.

The Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race, a white-water event which begins just north of Bangor in Kenduskeag, has been held since 1965.

In 1968, the base was sold to the city of Bangor, Maine, to become Bangor International Airport but has since continued to host the 101st Air Refueling Wing, Maine Air National ...

The abstract aluminum sculpture "Continuity of Community" (1969) on the Bangor Waterfront, formerly in West Market Square, is by the Castine sculptor Clark Battle Fitz-Gerald.

In the Groundhog Day gale of 1976, a storm surge went up the Penobscot, flooding Bangor for three hours.

In 1977, tourist Erwin Kreuz mistook the city for San Francisco.

It ushered in a decline of the city center that was accelerated by the construction of the Bangor Mall in 1978 and subsequent big-box stores on the city's outskirts.

Vince McMahon promoted his first professional wrestling event in Bangor in 1979.

Post Office in Bangor contains Yvonne Jacquette's 1980 three-part mural "Autumn Expansion".

In 1984 he was beaten and thrown off Bangor's State Street Bridge by three young men in a what would become a high-profile example of violence against LGBT people.

In 1985, the WWC Universal Heavyweight Championship changed hands for the first time outside of Puerto Rico at an IWCCW show in Bangor.

In 1990, the USAF East Coast Radar System (ECRS) Operation Center was activated in Bangor with over 400 personnel.

Bangor was home to two minor league baseball teams affiliated with the 1995–1998 Northeast League: the Bangor Blue Ox (1996–1997) and the Bangor Lumberjacks (2003–2004).

From 1999 to 2006, low fish stocks resulted in a ban on salmon fishing.

== Sports == From 2002 to 2017, Bangor had been home to Little League International's Senior League World Series.

In 2007, construction began on a $131-million casino complex in Bangor that houses, among other things, a gaming floor with about 1,000 slot machines, an off-track betting cente...

== Demographics == As of 2008, Bangor is the third most populous city in Maine, as it has been for more than a century.

=== 2010 census === As of the census of 2010, there were 33,039 people, 14,475 households, and 7,182 families residing in the city.

In 2011, it was authorized to add table games.

As of 2012, the estimated population of the Bangor Metropolitan Area (which includes Penobscot County) is 153,746, indicating a slight growth rate since 2000, almost all of it a...

In 2013, the City of Bangor also signed an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court calling for the federal Defense of Marriage Act to be struck down.

There is an average of 6.1 days annually with highs at or above 90 °F (32 °C), with the 2014 the last year not to have seen such high temperatures.

In 2015, local celebrities and business owners recorded the YouTube video "How to Say Bangor", which was sung to the tune of "We Are the World".

=== 2020 census === As of the census of 2020, there were 31,753 people and 13,887 households residing in the city.

As of 2025, the council members are Michael Beck, Susan Deane, Carolyn Fish, Rick Fournier, Susan Hawes, Joseph Leonard, Cara Pelletier (Chair), Wayne Mallar, and Dan Tremble.