PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Presque Isle Historical Society will host a new tour, the Amazing Mystery History Tour, on Labor day, Monday, Sept. 4, aboard Molly the Trolley.
Kim Smith, society board member and tour leader, said, “Fairly often I encounter lifelong residents of the area who tell me they were born and raised here and don’t need to go on any of our tours because they know everything there is to know about the area. These are the folks I love to have on board. The typical response at the end of the monthly city-wide tours from these tour-goers is that they indeed learned something they did not know, and usually within the first 10 minutes.
She added, “This new tour is completely different from the regular monthly city-wide tour with 14 sites that people have never been to on one of our tours and may not even know about.”
The 14 sites on this new tour include: a 1928 Nash automobile with an awning for a roof; the alleged tunnel underneath City Hall; the Northern Maine Sanatorium established in 1920 to treat tuberculosis; the site from which the 1959 National Christmas Tree was cut; the Model A chassis embedded in the stream; the Mooseleuk Club’s bowling alley where the men who set the pins actually laid on their bellies underneath Main Street; the still-in-existence embalming room in a former furniture store; the alleged burial site of Jim Cullen, the only known lynching in New England; the abandoned ski jump at the Aroostook State Park; the 136th Radio Security Detachment; the town poor farm; the Canadian & Pacific roundabout; the former home of Charles Phair, world renowned salmon fisherman; and the old jail.
The tour will leave the Historic Fire Station at 11 Church Street at promptly 1 p.m. and will last two to three hours. Tickets are $10 per person and seats are limited. Reservations are required by calling 762-1151.
