Nuts and bolts and hidden rooms
Walkabout: PI
Happenings in the Star City
Out with the old…
A former fixture of the local landscape has recently been flattened, leaving a hole both physically and figuratively.
The old Maine Potato Growers hardware store and garden center at 56 Parsons St. now reside in memory, having been torn down this fall. As the walls disappeared, recollections surfaced of many trips “up ta’ MPG” for this, that, and everything in-between.
The MPG Farm Store was a familiar destination to many, well known for its variety of stock. Opening in the 1960s, it was the go-to place for hardware, feed, seed, tools, clothing and more — even appliances, which were touted in later years by friendly “Uncle Merle” Cormier in a variety of local television ads.
According to The Star-Herald archives, that location was shuttered in April 2007, when ACE Hardware opened a brand-new store on neighboring property. The MPG/ACE store lasted for six years, closing for good in July 2013.
The store remained empty until earlier this year with the opening of Save-A-Lot.
Mooseleuk musings
The idea of hidden spaces from a century ago is intriguing — and even more so when an underground room is involved.
A trip to the Braden Theatre shows framed highlights of its namesake, the city’s famous racehorse John R. Braden. It was members of Presque Isle’s Mooseleuk Club who actually purchased the horse in 1920.
A conversation with a local business owner a couple of years ago, in the former Marston’s-turned-Star-City-Coffee, revealed a tie to the Mooseleuk Club: the remains of a bowling alley existed directly underfoot. The familiar creak of the wooden floor there apparently held secrets.
According to the Maine Memory Network, the Mooseleuk Club was established in 1900 by local businessmen, farmers and horsemen. “Allegedly, there was a club room on Main Street boasting a dining room, pool room, bowling alley and a fireplace,” reveals the MMN’s history of Presque Isle. Each member had his own key, but had to impart a secret password to enter.
Presque Isle Historical Society member Kim Smith confirmed those facts last week. “Their ‘clubhouse’ was indeed both above and below what used to be Marston’s,” she reported. “They held their meetings upstairs, [and] had a bowling alley in the basement. The pins actually sat directly below the sidewalk, and the men who reset the pins by hand laid on their stomachs below Main Street.”
Smith said the club was for gentlemen only; similar to other service clubs, they did good works for the community and enjoyed social time and sports such as bowling and billiards. She noted the bowling alley doesn’t much exist anymore, although “it is possible to see where two of the lanes roughly were.”
Interesting, those creaky floors…
