S is for SUMMER, all too short!

Wishing You Were Here…

These images are reprinted from c. 1950s postcards in the Museum's archival collections.

• Beach, 80.L.97
• Booth Tarkington's Schooner Regina, 84.L.586
  Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was an Indiana statesman, novelist, playwright and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He summered at his Kennebunkport estate, "Seawood." Still in existence today is his boathouse "The Floats" on Ocean Avenue, where he moored his schooner Regina.
• Dipsy Baths, 84.L.800
• Dock Square, Kennebunkport, 1997.28.28
• Atlantis Hotel, 2000.9.19
  The Atlantis was the last hotel to be built on Seashore Company land. It was constructed in 1903 at Kennebunk Beach. With 100 rooms and the serving of an afternoon tea, it was advertised as being “a modern, first-class hotel near golf links.” The Mexican Mission Style architecture of the building made it unlike any of the other hotels on the beach. The Atlantis was demolished in 1967.
• Kennebunkport Bath House and Bathing Beach, 2000.9.1
• Roger Deering Art Class, 2004.085.0
  Roger Deering (1904 - 1980) had studio on Ocean Avenue in Kennebunkport. He was a distinguished landscape and mural painter who represented Maine with oil painting at New York World’s Fair in 1940. Beginning in 1937, he held annual outdoor painting classes from June to September. The cost per lesson was $5.
• Arundel Opera House, 84.L
  Not to be confused with the present-day Arundel Barn Playhouse founded in 1998, the Arundel Opera House was on North Street in Kennebunkport on the site of what is now the Kennebunkport Fire Station.
• Kennebunkport Playhouse, 84.L
  Robert Currier founded the popular summer theater in 1933. Throughout its history, such renowned actors and actresses as Jane Morgan, Russell Nype and Alan Alda came to town to star in plays and musicals. The original playhouse burned in 1949 and was reconstructed on Currier's property on River Road near Cape Arundel Golf Club. Currier agreed to sell the building in 1970, but after a second fire in 1971, it was never rebuilt.

The Narragansett Hotel

The Narragansett was constructed by John Curtis in 1905 on Oakes Neck, a rocky outcropping on Kennebunk Beach. This location allowed rooms on both sides of the hotel to have an ocean view, but all 60 rooms shared one bathroom. The Narragansett was the largest hotel built at the turn of the century along Kennebunk Beach to escape fire and demolition. It was gutted and converted into condominiums in 1979 and still dominates the beachscape today.

Picnic Basket, c. 1950

This metal picnic basket simulates the design of grained wood. The inside lid sports pasted cut-out pictures of “Old Mr. Boston” brand liquor.

Brick Store Museum Collection. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Dean A. Fales, Jr., 1985. 85.1.3

Moxie Bottle

Originated in the 1880s by Dr. Augustin Thompson in Lowell, Massachusetts, Moxie was initially billed as “Moxie Nerve Food,” a patent medicine with supposed capabilities to cure almost any ailment. The word “moxie” is said to have its origins as an Abenaki word meaning “dark water.” The beverage has a strong, bracing and slightly bitter flavor, which many claim is an acquired taste. Moxie became America’s first mass-marketed soft drink. With a savvy advertising campaign, Moxie was the nation’s most popular soda into the 1920s, even outselling Coca-Cola. The song Just Make it Moxie for Mine was a hit in 1904, and baseball legend Ted Williams hawked Moxie for well over two decades. So popular was the drink that “moxie” entered the American lexicon as synonymous with having guts or spunk.

Today, there is a New England Moxie Congress that celebrates Moxie Day, as well as an annual Moxie Festival held each July in Lisbon Falls, Maine, drawing upwards of 30,000 people.

The Maine State Legislature adopted Moxie as the official state beverage on May 10, 2005.

On loan from Janet and Rick Wolf.