Carrie Shores can walk Zorba on Main Street. The 31-year-old architect and her dog won't get busted on their daily stroll past century-old buildings. Repeal of a 1983 municipal ordinance banning canines on Main Street, imposed to keep a motorcycle gang and its Dobermans, Rottweilers, and German shepherds from terrorizing pedestrians, speaks volumes about the ongoing transformation of this mid-coast city into an artsy, upscale hub. Once dubbed "Rockland by the Smell" for the stink produced by a fish rendering plant, this is no longer the tough fishing port where 20 years ago barroom brawls occurred daily. "It was a wild town. You'd go to get the court news, there were women beating up women," says Emmet Meara , a columnist for the Bangor Daily News . But "Shore Village," as Rockland was known historically, hasn't lost its salty soul. The city still has a working waterfront, where fishing trawlers have been replaced by sloops, cruisers, lobster yachts, and other pleasure craft.
An upscale air
Once rough-and-tumble fishing town now boasts artsy presence
Do
Abbie Burgess, the eldest daughter of Matinicus Rock Lighthouse keeper Sam Burgess, helped her father tend the lamps on the treacherous pile of granite 25 miles from Rockland. A photo of Burgess, who lighted the whale oil lamps and performed other duties from 1856 to 1875, is on display at the Maine Lighthouse Museum (1 Park Drive, 207-594-3301, mainelighthousemuseum.com ). Captain Kenneth Black, a former commander of the US Coast Guard Station in Rockland, amassed the collection, which includes a surf boat, fog bell, buoy lanterns, Fresnel lenses, and other lighthouse-related artifacts.A few blocks away, another Maine woman, Lucy C. Farnsworth, distinguished herself by putting Rockland on the art world's radar. The reclusive spinster and second daughter and heir of lime baron William A. Farnsworth was considered an eccentric miser. But the canny 97-year-old, who hid thousands of dollars behind picture frames and under stair treads, astonished locals in 1935 by leaving her entire $1.3 million estate to the city to build a library and art museum in her father's memory. The Wyeth family have further enriched the Farnsworth Art Museum (16 Museum St., 207-596-6457, farnsworthmuseum.org ) with works by N.C., Andrew, and Jamie Wyeth.
Play
Ride to Vinalhaven island on the Maine State Ferry Service's Governor Curtis or Captain Charles Philbrook (517A Main St., 800-491-4883, maine.gov ). Before catching the ferry, get fresh almond croissants or turkey focaccia sandwiches to go from Atlantic Baking Co. (351 Main St., 207-596-0505, atlanticbakingco.com ).Motorheads should head 2 miles south to the Owls Head Transportation Museum (Route 73, 207-594-4418, ohtm.org ). Check out the 1903 Mercedes Simplex Tourer, 1912 Woods Electric Brougham, and other treasures.
READER COMMENTS »
View reader comments » Comment on this story »