Lobster boats going back and forth all the time, you see the islands, sailboats, all the activities that probably people think of a maine visit would be. We take a boat to fort gorgeous, a civil war era just off the portland kos. We are on hog island ledge. Where they built for gorgeous in 1858 to help defend portland harbor. We have completed an 18 6 it was completed in 1865 and was built with two sister forts off to the south. Its camel on how silent. They were designed to work in conjunction with each other to defend the harbor. Everyone thinks for gorgeous is a civil war fort when it was funded long before, and it was approved by congress. Things that occurred much earlier. We begin our feature on portlands history, talking about lobstering. In 2016, the Maine Lobster industry generated over 500 million. Next, we learn about its history and economic impact. Over here is my gps and radar. Here in the fog, it helps us figure out where we are. Traps with amy gps. I kind of do it by feel. Look at that bad boy. Hes a male. That right day there is about 75i five to 80 is about dollars to 85 in new york. Maine has been tied up with the sea for a long time. Coastal maine was a place where many people farmed and it was theicult to farm because soil was not easy and a lot of people, especially in certain parts of the state had twos had to turn to the scene to survive. The lobster evolved from being a nuisance species used for fertilizer and could sell anywhere to the end all be all support that is keeping many of the working waterfronts and working people and ages old fishing communities alive. Lobsters were incredibly common in the colonial period. You could go out and get them by waiting out in the bay wading out in the bay. In storms, they would form wind roads up the top of the beach and people would collect them to fertilize their garden. They were staggeringly comment. You could of course be them and they became one of the foods of last resort if you were running low on things. You would pick claims from the shore, you would go and get lobsters because they were always there and easy to get. The problem with them commercially, if you were to try to earn a living is first of all, in your local community, everyone else can go get the lobsters and send their kids out to get a wheelbarrow full. Lobsters, when they die, start teacher frying almost immediately. You have to sell them live. Tothe past, there was no way keep them alive to get them to market. Lobsters were seen as a nuisance, but none anything you could make money off of. The time when you could start making money to make a living fishing lobster came in the 19th century. Starting in 1800, 1810, people in some of the major cities, boston and new york and particular, started selling lobsters locally. They would send kids out in those days you can trap a lobster on the bottom, they took barrel hoops and they put netting over it and they would sticks bentple of over where you could hang some kind of bait. They would drop them in the water and they would have a rope attached. Basically they would wait, watching in the water until a lobster walked onto the net to get the bait and they would pull it up. You could pull up lots and lots of lobsters in that fashion. There were so many of them. Entrepreneurial people would create boiling houses and send kids out or go out themselves and trap these lobsters with these traps and start selling them around the city from boiled them so they were read and sell them as an inexpensive sorts source of food. The problem that came up very and newwas near boston york it is essentially sandy bottom. It is not good lobster habitats. Resource was quickly overexploited. There are not that many lobsters down there. The demand kept growing and growing and more people came out with their traps and they had to go into deeper water. Pretty soon, they are getting to the point where they could not get lobsters before they started putrefying. They could not get them in the city, they were so far out trying to catch them. The innovation that transform the industry particularly in fueling thept expansion of the expansion of the lobster Consumer Market up and down the east coast was that some ambitious yankees with Yankee Ingenuity came up with a solution. They took one of their failing and they built a wooden tank in the hold and then they drove lots of holes to flood the tank. So like a sieve. And whichd flow in they would put the lobsters into of recirculated sea water and they would stay alive for several days to sail to market. That meant that these vessels could travel much longer distances. They started sailing first to providence in massachusetts but also sandy bottoms, they started over exploiting those. I the 1830s they started showing up in maine near portland. It turned out thats one of the only places and all of maine were people where people were attaching lobsters as a commercial proposition was in a peninsula from 10 miles from here. The reason for that is heart folk was one of the first section of rocky coast and it was adjacent to portland which had that growing market of createdclass people who a massmarket to sell lobsters. They were close enough where they could sail down here each day and deliver their catch. The first phase where it exploded is as people were realizing entrepreneurial people, that there was a demand and taste for lobsters, and it started moving to restaurants and other places where people were starting to ebay them by choice, they were becoming maybe not a delicacy but not a cheap form of protein and as that happened, you have the beginnings and aftermath of the civil war, and summit summer cottage or trade, you had people coming to maine to get away from the heat, to have their kids learn to sail. They would build these cottages. They started wanting to eat at some of the local food. Lobster became more popular. People realized it was an extensive market for it. Some of these entrepreneurs started thinking about what if you could preserve it and send it longer distances come into distances, longer to the midwest . There were canneries that started forming. Cant otherhey products canned other products. It happened to fit the time when the big lobster landings were happening at the time. They started fitting it in on a provisional basis. They started sending thousands and tens of thousands of cans of lobster meat all over the country. This started creating an enormous demand. There ended up being 150 lobster canneries up and down the maine coast. Macs comingir own out. Through the 1880s and 1890s, the demand for lobsters of almost any size became so enormous that it started overwhelming and destroying the lobster population itself. Maines lobster fisheries today is an example heralded in fishery short circles fishery circles of a sustainable fishery. This came out of a terrible tragedy. This was a hard learned experience because none of those conservation measures were in place of the end of the 19th century. Five of take a four or snapper lobsters to get enough meat to fill the cans. Because of this, you could land and a lobster, there was a most and in say should go demand to buy it, they started wiping out the breeding stock of the lobster. Crash andp being a the population. As the crash happened, the value of lobster kept going up. There was an incentive to hunt down and fish the very last animal because the per unit price of the animal grew as it became rarer. We have seen that in wildlife exploitation industries in fisheries. A continued to the point where lobster landings were terrible. On the way up until 1921 1929 when the stark market crashed stock market crash. Then, you have the Great Depression which capped fishermen from going out and aggressively pursuing lobster. After the Great Depression, you had the Second World War when many fishermen were serving in the navy or drafted into service to fight the front war. It was not safe to go out into many fisheries, grounds because of the uboats and other threats up there. There was a period of decades where humans laid off maines lobster fisheries. After world war ii when things got back to normal and the supply chain for lobster regroup regroup, the resource has been in healthy shape. The lessons of having destroyed it has been learned in the communities. There was a not only support for various conservation laws of that had been on the books, may be in the 19th century, but not catching lobsters bigger than a certain size because those are the successful breeders, the number of eggs a female lobster produces grows geometrically with its size. If you catch all the big ones, you are doing much greater damage to the lobster population than you think. But not catching the small ones that have not had a chance to reproduce once. Doing that started helping. There ended up being a cascading series of international improvements of additional improvements. Special vents to let lobsters that are undersized escape. Lobstermen throw away and returned to the water females bearing eggs. They notch the tales of the females so that if another lobstermen catches the female later, they will see it it was a successful breeder and return it again, but not before first renotching the lobster. Each time they molt, it would disappear. Various other measures that ensured the existence of a breeding stock and not catching ones that are too big or too small. Using the form of traps a destroygy that did not and disrupt the bottom habitat. That did not accidentally catch the young or other species and ended up being rather benign. The result think about this, we are in the 21st century in an Industrial Area of virtually everything. We have this industry which is growing thats because of this prosecutedis still by sole proprietors, by somebody who usually owns their boat with one or two assistance on the vessel going out from their home port and returning that day at a a households individual owner scale. That is how the entire lobster fishery, which is providing or flying torcraft china into japan loaded with level. , of that it has been a level and scale that happens in tandem with the resource. It has had social and cultural benefits for the communities because it is locally owned and operated. But also it has had an enormous benefit in the longterm for the lobster fishery because it has defended and protected the resource. Lobster fishing is the only fishing left because the other were morel fisheries or less destroyed. There are few ground fishing boats left in maine. Portland is one of the last places where there are any. Other traditional fisheries have fallen aside. It means the lobster fishermen entire legacy of working fishermen. When you are out on a boat going out there to learn your living, you have to be self aligned and know what you are doing. And go out there and top of the out of there and tackle the elements. Dot is what meiners had to for a long time because of our tragic socioeconomic history. All weekend, American History tv is featuring portland maine. We visited many sites showcasing its history. Workrs henry walls longfellow and stephen king are natives of portland. Learn more about portland all weekend here on American History tv. While in portland, we took a driving tour of the city with visit portland creative director robert witkowski. Thank you for showing us around portland, maine. My pleasure. It is a beautiful city. When people hear the name portland, portland, maine may not be the first life that comes to mind. Tell me about this . Is the portland, maine First Portland in the United States. When a lot of people dont realize is portland, oregon is the one that stole our name. It was not stolen, as much as given to it. Theyided the name wanted to name it after their hometown. The guy from portland, maine one. This is a part of massachusetts when it started. The First Parish Church is one of the oldest churches in the city continuously. It has changed locations. Its original bidding building was wooden. Where thehe church longfellow family worshiped and their pew is still there. There is that great Literary History here. There is a revolutionary war cannonball in the chandelier that they found when they tore down the wooden structure when the city was attacked in 1775 by the british. What is portland bestknown . Forortland is best known lobster and light houses. However, there is so much more of a rich deep history to this city that a lot of people do not know. Theold section is one of key seaports back in the day. It still remains a working waterfront and very influential in terms of the world trade today. Inmuch of what is going on the history of the United States had a lot of focal points in portland. It was in the background, and people do not appreciate how much of a motivator it was. In the declaration of independence, they reference the british burning our cities, and they were talking about when portland was burned by the british in 1775. Where are we heading now . We are in the heart of the old court. This is the original epicenter of the city. It was all wood back in the revolutionary days. After the civil war, there was a fire, some of fourth of july celebrations that out of control. The wood chips created an entire fire that burned down three force of the city. All of the brick and castiron buildings were rebuilt within one or two years of that. I see a lot of of these old cobblestone streets, a lot of these things look pretty historic. What are they today . A lot of them are restaurants, cafes, shops. Front ofers church in us is still a working church. The bottom floors were set up for retail entertainment. Commercial street. This is amazing because right now we are driving on the harbor. This used to be water back when the city was founded. They wound up getting a commission to be the winter for for montreal and quebec. When that happened, they needed railroads. There was no streets in portland for the rail rates railways. They rounded up creating this street. The Center Divide was the original railroad tracks. Everything you see to the right still functioning as a dock for seafood. Correct. A lot of that has lobster fisheries, there is a fish exchange. Sort of like the Stock Exchange but for seafood. It is a lot quieter than the Stock Exchange. It is where restaurants from around the world will come in and they will bid and buy seafood as a comes off the boat in large lots. We are heading into the east end which is known as munge a hill. This is the eastern farm. If you look to our left side you will see ship captain mansions. They were waiting for their ships to come in because they have these terrific views of the harbor. This out here is casco bay. A lot of the islands are city limits. We have the fairies that go back and forth for the commuters. We have a huge surge in population for the summertime. It is crowded out there. We have a tremendous amount of islands. There is about 220. When they first explore this area, a wrote to england that there were so many islands out there that they matched the days of the year. They became known as the calendar islands. Do people live out on these islands now . Is it just recreation, for the summertime . The larger islands have yearround population. There are a lot of summer cottages as well. The smaller islands are more for recreation. There is a lot of locations on there because this was the head of the north american operations during world war ii and the nearest port to europe and africa. Tell me about the men join hill neighborhood. Observatory is one of the rare buildings that survived the fire. It has a lighthouse with a signal tower. It alerted people when ships came in. The owner had the workers pouring water down the side so it did not work. Burned. Fire,rea was, after the everyone moved to the west end because the fire had gone to east. Area however, became an for bluecollar laborers, seaport workers, soldiers during the wars. We are driving around the downtown area. We see a Farmers Market. Is one ofmers market the oldestk in the country continuing Farmers Market in the original spot it started. It is everyone stay over here. Passing longfellows childhood home by this means Historical Society. We are going up congress street. The Farmers Market is really terrific. It is a huge push in the farm to table movement. That is something we have to talk about. One of my favorite reasons to visit portland is the feed. You have a great food scene. Why do you think there this is a popular place to open a restaurant . There is a deeper appreciation for food. A lot of produce comes out of this state. It is largely a world state. It has been recognized where we going . We are heading out of the city. We are going across the casco bay bridge into south portland. Soft portland we will go to cape elizabeth. We are entering portland headlights home which is floor wing port wings part. It is now the city of heartland. Could you say this is the most iconic structure in the portland area . I would say it is the most iconic structure in new england. There is a lot of great lighthouses and the world. This is probably the quintessential white house. It is the most photographed in the country. I would say in the world. The nice thing about this white house, there are obviously older light houses in the country, but this is the first United States white house. When you go to the left along the ridge, there is a cliff walk. You have this wonderful cliff walk that is along the cliffs looking down on the ocean with the waves, you can actually find areas where you can go onto the rocks. From various points, the views of this lighthouse from various points are terrific. If you go the other way, there is more of a block. Nice areas to sit down in the grass. It does not get old. No matter how many times i see this lighthouse, it is just as beautiful. It is. So tremendous. Longfellow lived in town, he was very friendly with the family that the lighthouse keepers was the longest of the lighthouse keepers. They were here for decades. He used to come down and spend the night. There is a section talking about influencing his work. There is a stanza from one of his poems about coming out here and sitting by the lighthouse and watching the ocean and relaxing. We have talked about portland. Uni, even off camera, have talked about our shared love for the city. What is next . But would you like to see for this place . We want it to grow. To see what it is becoming, more People Living in a discovering how beautiful it is. We dont want t