Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here (or still does): Bangor, Maine

Some Famous Writer Once Lived Here is where we check out cities or towns that--you guessed it--a famous writer once lived (or still does). Picture the illegitimate lovechild between the US Census report and a tourist pamphlet from a local chamber of commerce. What's it like there today? Here's where we find out.


Today:  Stephen King currently lives in Bangor, Maine:


Maine is a state with two identities. One is the postcard perfect rocky coastline that greets the Atlantic Ocean, dotted with lighthouses and harbors brimming with lobster trawlers and dappled sunlight. The other is a densely wooded interior, thick with moose and unsmiling bearded men wearing camo and the weight of fifty New England winters.

Bangor is a halfway house between the two Maines, from mainlining heroin (rural interior) to sobriety (the coastline).

Clearly Bangor, Maine, doesn't have the sex appeal of San Francisco or Miami--or even Burlington, VT, for that matter--but it does have Stephen King. If you lived in Miami you'd write about Cuban drug smugglers named Tony Montana who have with a cocaine jones. If you lived in Bangor, Maine, you'd write about rabid dogs named Cujo who want to murder you and your children. That explains Bangor, and that explains Stephen King.


The basics of Bangor, Maine:

Location:

About thirty miles north up the Penobscot River from Penobscot Bay and the Atlantic Ocean you'll find Bangor, hanging at the midway driving point between Portsmouth, NH, and Saint John, NB, Canada.

When given the choice between New Hampshire or Canada, always go with Canada.

2010 Census:

Population: 33,039 people, up nearly 1,500 people since 2000. Stephen King's next novel will be about population control.

Racial Makeup:  93.1% white, 1.7% African American, 1.2% Native American, 1.7% Asian, 1.5% Hispanic or Latino. If you ever doubted Maine was racially diverse, well, it's apparent that you were right, and your pessimism didn't help.

Of those listed as families by the U.S. Census, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, while 4.2% had a male householder with no wife present--proving once and for all that men can't live by themselves.


What to see, what to do in Bangor:





It's always good to dabble in a little culture before venturing into the forest to kill a few moose. The University of Maine Museum of Art has over 6,500 pieces, including works by Marsden Hartley, Berenice Abbot, Winslow Homer, and John Marin. And at least one of those people is vaguely famous, too!

You cannot see this Winslow Homer painting in Maine.

The Mount Hope Garden Cemetery has over 300 rolling acres to walk, and was the setting for the filming of Stephen King's Pet Sematary. Homicidal offspring rising from the dead? Sounds like a family tourist attraction if I ever heard of one. Bring the kids!

He carries a big stick...and a smile.

There's a Paul Bunyan statue to visit, claiming to be the largest Paul Bunyan statue in the world. Because you don't want to see just any second-rate gigantic Paul Bunyan statue...you want to see the largest.

Interested in Bangor's #1 tourist attraction, according to TripAdvisor? Nothing says a hot, happening good time like the Cole Land Transportation Museum, which has a variety of transport vehicles that have graced the dirt and paved roads of Maine. According to Wikipedia, the museum has "various vintage automobiles, including [...] a Buick, a Volkswagen, and the Oldsmobile 98, the official vehicle of Governor Joseph E. Brennan of Maine, who served from 1979 to 1987."

That's right, folks. You, too, can visit a museum and see not only a Volkswagen, but a Buick as well. That's the kind of suburban titillation usually reserved for strip malls.


Where to eat in Bangor:


The Fiddlehead Restaurant has a $16 burger and $25 pork ribs, but their website links to a news article that claims Fiddlehead is inexpensive. You know what's inexpensive? Ramen.

Cheap! And remotely tasty!

If you're looking for a taste of Alabama, but minus the feel of 1860's Confederacy, venture in to Moe's Original Bar B Que, which has locations through the U.S., including 13 in Alabama...and one in Bangor. Is Bangor the Birmingham of the north? Yes. Yes, it is.

You know when a restaurant is too cool to have a website because it gets by on word of mouth? So then they like to add some level of mystery in today's modern world by keeping themselves off the web? That's Friars' Bakehouse, which apparently makes ginormous sandwiches that make Bangor residents' hearts flutter like a protagonist in a Stephen King novel about to be murdered. Since we can't learn about this restaurant revelation, let's all assume it's like the cross between a Subway and a Chipotle, only classier.


Wasn't the modern recipe for brownies created in Bangor?

Yes. But don't we all kind of prefer cupcakes?


Stephen King's thoughts on Bangor:
"Where we live in Maine is one of the poorest counties. A lot of the people we see and hang with cut wood for a living, drive trash, that sort of thing. I don’t want to say I have the common touch, but I am just a common person, and I have this one talent that I use."

(In Neil Gaiman's interview in the UK Sunday Times Magazine.)