Between 1865 and 1900, the United States urban population grew from 6 million to 30 million. Maine experienced this growth in ways shaped by its geography, resources, and transportation routes. The 1870 census captured a snapshot of Maine’s urban development just five years after the war ended. Portland ranked as the state’s largest city with over 31,000 residents, followed by manufacturing centers like Lewiston, Bangor, and Augusta. These communities grew around specific industries – lumber, shipbuilding, textiles, and paper – each of which demanded different types of buildings, infrastructure, and planning. The relationship between major infrastructure failures and urban development shaped how cities adopted building codes and engineering standards that remain in use today.
Transportation Infrastructure as a City-Building Force
Railroads were the primary driver of urban growth in post-Civil War Maine. The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 demonstrated what rail could do for national connectivity, but Maine had been building its own network since the 1830s. By 1870, the state had over 1,000 miles of track connecting coastal ports to inland timber and agricultural regions. Portland became the winter port for the Grand Trunk Railway system, which carried Canadian grain to ships bound for Europe. This rail-port connection required extensive infrastructure: freight yards, grain elevators, warehouses, and wharves. The construction of the Grand Trunk’s Portland terminal involved filling 20 acres of tidal flats with gravel and stone to create solid building land. This type of land reclamation project was common in 19th-century coastal cities and required engineering techniques adapted from foundation methods used in historic waterfront cities around the world.
Railroad Construction Methods of the 1860s
Building a railroad through Maine’s rugged terrain required earthmoving on a scale previously unknown in the state. Cuts through bedrock were made with black powder blasting and hand drilling, with laborers drilling holes 2 to 3 feet deep using steel drills and sledgehammers. A skilled drilling crew of three men could drill and blast 10 to 15 holes per day, advancing the cut by about 6 feet per week. Embankments across valleys were built by horse-drawn scrapers called slip scrapers, each pulled by two horses and moved about 1 cubic yard of material per trip. The standard railroad bed was 16 feet wide on fills and 18 feet wide in cuts, with a maximum grade of 2 percent and minimum curve radius of 1,000 feet for main lines. Track consisted of iron rails weighing 56 pounds per yard, spiked to white oak ties spaced 24 inches apart on centers.
Bridge Construction for the Rail Network
Maine’s numerous rivers and streams required hundreds of railroad bridges. The most common design was the timber Howe truss, which used vertical iron rods and diagonal timber compression members. These bridges typically spanned 80 to 150 feet and cost $40 to $60 per linear foot to build in 1870 dollars, equivalent to about $900 to $1,400 per foot today. The Howe truss was favored because it could be built by local carpenters using readily available materials. Covered bridges were common for shorter spans; the roof protected the timber trusses from rot, extending service life from 15 to over 50 years. Stone arch bridges were built for the most permanent locations, using locally quarried granite blocks set without mortar on a rubble foundation.
| Bridge Type | Span Range | Cost per Linear Foot (1870) | Modern Equivalent Cost | Typical Lifespan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Howe truss (timber) | 80 to 150 ft | $40 to $60 | $900 to $1,400 | 15 to 30 years |
| Covered timber | 40 to 100 ft | $30 to $50 | $700 to $1,200 | 40 to 60 years |
| Stone arch | 20 to 60 ft | $80 to $150 | $1,900 to $3,500 | 100+ years |
| Iron truss | 100 to 200 ft | $100 to $200 | $2,400 to $4,700 | 60 to 80 years |
Residential Construction Patterns in Growing Cities
Maine’s post-war urban population needed housing, and builders responded with dense residential neighborhoods within walking distance of mills, docks, and factories. The typical worker’s dwelling in a city like Lewiston or Biddeford was a two-story wood-frame tenement building containing four to eight apartments, each with two or three rooms. These buildings were set on granite block foundations with brick chimneys and clad in pine clapboards painted white or ochre. Floor plans followed a standard double-pile layout with a central stair hall dividing two apartments per floor. Construction cost for a typical four-family tenement averaged $1,500 to $2,500 in 1870, or about $35,000 to $59,000 today. The safety risks of dense 19th-century urban housing led to building code reforms that gradually improved construction standards over subsequent decades.
Materials and Methods in 1870s Residential Building
Wood-frame construction dominated Maine’s 19th-century residential building because of the abundance of local timber. Eastern white pine was the preferred framing material, milled into 2-by-4, 2-by-6, and 2-by-8 dimensions at local sawmills. Framing followed the balloon frame system, with continuous studs running from the sill plate to the roof plate, a method that sped construction compared to earlier heavy timber framing. Nails were machine-cut and cost $3 to $4 per 100 pounds. Sheathing was 1-inch thick pine boards applied diagonally, covered with building paper made from tarred felt, then finished with pine clapboards or wood shingles. Interior walls were plastered over wood lath, with three coats of lime plaster applied over hand-split lath strips nailed to the studs at 3/8-inch gaps.
Heat and Lighting Infrastructure
Homes in 1870s Maine relied on wood or coal stoves for heat and oil lamps for light. The typical worker’s apartment had a cast-iron parlor stove that consumed 3 to 5 cords of wood per heating season. A cord of firewood cost $4 to $6 delivered, representing 5 to 10 percent of a laborer’s annual wages. Coal became increasingly common after 1870 as railroad connections made Pennsylvania anthracite available for $7 to $10 per ton delivered to Portland and other coastal cities. Gas lighting reached some Maine cities by 1870, with manufactured coal gas distributed through cast-iron pipes laid beneath city streets. The Bangor Gas Company, founded in 1849, served 500 customers by 1870 through 8 miles of distribution mains. Each gaslight customer used 1,000 to 3,000 cubic feet of gas per month at a cost of $1.50 to $2.00 per thousand cubic feet.
Commercial and Industrial Building Development
Maine’s industrial cities required buildings designed for specific manufacturing processes. Lewiston’s textile mills, powered by water from the Androscoggin River, were among the largest industrial buildings in New England. The Bates Mill complex, begun in 1852 and expanded through the 1870s, contained over 500,000 square feet of floor space under a single roof by 1880. Mill buildings were constructed with heavy timber frames using the mill construction system, which featured thick timber columns and beams designed to resist fire longer than standard light wood framing. The stone exterior walls were 24 to 36 inches thick at the base, tapering to 18 inches at the roof line. Major infrastructure disasters of the 19th century influenced how industrial buildings were sited relative to waterways and how their structural systems were engineered.
Mill Construction System Details
The mill construction system used in Maine’s textile factories was a distinct building method that combined heavy timber with fire-resistive details. Columns were 12-by-12 inch or larger pine timbers spaced 16 to 20 feet apart in each direction. Girders were 8-by-16 inch timbers spanning between columns, with floor joists of 4-by-12 inch pine set 24 inches on center. The floor deck was 3-inch thick tongue-and-groove planking laid over the joists. Sprinkler systems did not exist in the 1870s, so fire protection relied on masonry firewalls that divided the mill into sections of 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. Each section had its own access stair and exterior door. Cast-iron columns were sometimes used in place of timber in later mill buildings, providing greater strength in a smaller cross section. A typical mill building of five stories and 50,000 square feet cost $80,000 to $120,000 to build in 1870.
Warehouse and Wharf Construction
Portland’s status as a major shipping port required extensive warehouse capacity along its waterfront. The typical wharf warehouse was a three- to four-story timber-frame building built directly on the wharf deck, with ground-floor access for horse-drawn wagons and upper floors served by exterior hoists and gangplanks. Warehouses were framed with heavy timber using the same mill construction principles as factories, with 10-by-10 inch posts spaced 12 to 14 feet apart. The ground floor of a typical wharf building supported a live load of 250 to 300 pounds per square foot for stored goods. Foundation piles under the wharf itself were driven 20 to 40 feet through mud to reach bearing soils. Maine’s granite wharves, built with two to three courses of dimension stone over timber cribbing, cost $100 to $200 per linear foot and lasted 80 to 100 years with routine maintenance.
Water Supply and Sanitation Infrastructure
Urban growth forced Maine cities to develop organized water and sewer systems. Before 1870, most residents drew water from wells or public pumps and disposed of waste in privy vaults. Portland built its first municipal water system in 1858, drawing water from Sebago Lake through a 20-inch cast-iron main running 16 miles. The system cost $500,000 and could deliver 3 million gallons per day to the city’s 31,000 residents. Bangor followed with a system drawing from Flood’s Pond through 12 miles of 16-inch main completed in 1876. These water systems were the largest civil engineering projects of their era in the state. Urban infrastructure planning principles developed during this period continue to guide how cities design water distribution networks and sanitary systems.
Sewer Construction in the 1870s
Pipes were egg-shaped or circular vitrified clay sections, 12 to 36 inches in diameter, laid in trenches 6 to 12 feet deep. Manholes were brick-lined shafts 3 to 4 feet in diameter with cast-iron covers. Installation cost for a 12-inch main was $2.50 to $4.00 per linear foot. Sewer grades followed natural drainage with minimum slopes of 0.5 percent for small pipes and 0.2 percent for large interceptors. Outfalls discharged untreated sewage directly into rivers and harbors.
Street Construction Standards
City streets in 1870s Maine followed a standard cross-section that has influenced right-of-way design to the present day. Portland’s typical residential street was 50 feet wide, with a 20-foot wide travel surface of compacted gravel, flanked by 10-foot wide sidewalks on each side and 5-foot wide grass strips for tree planting. Commercial streets were 60 to 66 feet wide with 30-foot wide pavements. Street paving materials varied by budget and traffic. Cobblestone paving cost $1.50 to $2.50 per square yard but produced a rough ride for wagons. Granite block paving on a sand or concrete base cost $3.00 to $5.00 per square yard and lasted 30 to 50 years. Wood block paving, using pine blocks treated with creosote and set in sand on a concrete base, was tried in some cities but lasted only 8 to 12 years in Maine’s wet climate.
How 19th Century Decisions Shape Modern Maine Cities
The building patterns established in the 1860s and 1870s continue to influence Maine’s urban form. The downtown street grids, the location of industrial districts along rivers, the stock of 19th-century housing, and the original water and sewer infrastructure all shape present-day development decisions. Portland’s Old Port district, with its brick and granite commercial buildings from the 1850s through 1880s, has become a model of historic adaptive reuse. Over 80 percent of the district’s 19th-century commercial buildings remain in use, housing restaurants, retail, and offices. The conversion of former mill buildings in Lewiston, Biddeford, and Saco into apartments and commercial space has created over 2,000 housing units since 2000. These projects must work within the constraints of heavy timber frames, masonry bearing walls, and floor load capacities designed for 19th-century machinery. Innovative building materials developed for modern urban environments can help bridge the gap between historic structures and contemporary performance standards.
Infrastructure challenges inherited from the 19th century remain significant. Portland’s combined sewer system still serves much of the city, and heavy rain events trigger combined sewer overflows that discharge untreated sewage into Casco Bay. The Portland Water District has invested over $200 million since 1990 to separate sewers and build storage tunnels that reduce overflow events. Similar investments are needed statewide. Builders working on infill projects in Maine’s older cities should budget for connection fees to upgrade 19th-century water mains and sewers that may be undersized for modern demand. A typical connection upgrade costs $5,000 to $20,000 depending on the required pipe diameter and distance to the main. The cities that grew around Maine’s 19th-century industries are now being rebuilt for 21st-century needs, and understanding their original construction is the first step in planning their next chapter. Walkable neighborhood design principles adapted from 19th-century street patterns are increasingly used in new developments because they create the density and connectivity that modern residents seek.