Belfast, Maine
|
|
Belfast is a city located in Waldo County, Maine. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 6,381. It is the county seat of Waldo CountyTemplate:GR.
| Contents |
Geography
Belfast is located at 44°25'33" North, 69°0'42" West (44.425896, -69.011646)Template:GR.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 99.3 km² (38.3 mi²). 88.2 km² (34.0 mi²) of it is land and 11.2 km² (4.3 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 11.26% water.
Demographics
As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there are 6,381 people, 2,765 households, and 1,692 families residing in the city. The population density is 72.4/km² (187.5/mi²). There are 3,121 housing units at an average density of 35.4/km² (91.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 97.56% White, 0.28% African American, 0.27% Native American, 0.28% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.27% from other races, and 1.33% from two or more races. 0.69% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 2,765 households out of which 25.8% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.8% are married couples living together, 10.8% have a female householder with no husband present, and 38.8% are non-families. 31.5% of all households are made up of individuals and 13.3% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.23 and the average family size is 2.77.
In the city the population is spread out with 20.9% under the age of 18, 7.5% from 18 to 24, 24.2% from 25 to 44, 27.3% from 45 to 64, and 20.0% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 43 years. For every 100 females there are 87.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 83.0 males.
The median income for a household in the city is $32,400, and the median income for a family is $43,253. Males have a median income of $30,514 versus $27,518 for females. The per capita income for the city is $19,276. 13.2% of the population and 10.0% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 19.5% of those under the age of 18 and 9.1% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
History
Belfast was for the first hundred years of its organized history a ship building center, sending hundreds of three, four, and five masted schooners down the ways and making the fortune of many a New England shipping and whaling family. Its location on the western shore of idyllic Penobscot Bay, sheltered but with a short run to the open ocean, made for a ideal shipbuilding location. Bangor, Maine, the North American lumber capital for most of the later 1800s, was less than a day's run up the Penobscot River, and Boston, Massachusetts was a little over a day's run south. The death of wooden cargo sailing vessels around the turn of the 20th century coincided with the advent of modern refrigeration, allowing the plentiful local seafood (mainly lobsters) to take the place of schooners and lumber as the region's primary export. Lobsters, scallops, sardines, herring, and mackerel made their way to the markets in Boston, New York City, and farther afield. Along the way, Belfast and the surrounding communities became a favored summer destination for middle-class east coast city dwellers, drawn by, but unable to afford, the favors of chic Bar Harbor, two hours up the coast and popularized by John D. Rockefeller and family in the 1920s.
Sometime after World War II, Belfast added the mass production of chickens to its economic arsenal, and the annual Broiler Festival became, along with the Fourth of July, the highpoint of the summer season for locals and summer people alike. The collapse of the broiler industry in the mid-1970s during a general economic downturn across the country was devestating to Belfast and the surrounding communities. Even today, the long narrow concrete footprints of decades-gone chicken houses can be found in overgrown fields throughout the county. The demolition in the early 1980s of the defunct chicken-feed silos at the foot of Main Street that had once fed millions of chickens marked a turning point for the community as the old order was faded away. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, depressed real estate prices had attracted many hippies, back-to-the-landers, and other oddball artistic types. In 1977, years before the actual collapse of the broiler chicken industry, the Belfast Co-op was formed, which still thrives to this day. After its founding, the Co-op quickly became a meeting place, clearing-house, and general petri dish of sustainability and artistic ideas, and that community exists and thrives to this day. The Co-op was the headquarters for the flip-side of Belfast's traditional blue-collar character; the artistic, freewheeling, care-not and often ne'er-do-well. The two communities have, over the years, fused but never truly coalesced. Today they operate with equal measures of mistrust and respect as the salt-of-the-earthers have realized that even hippies can be hard working, and the back-to-the-earthers have come to sympathize with the earnest ideals (and methods) of those who have worked the land and sea for generations. The two groups share a disdain of summer residents and anyone else from farther south than Rockland and foolish enough to wander from Routes 1 and 3.
In the early 1990s MBNA, the credit card giant, established a large facility just west of town, simultaneously alienating and co-opting most of the town with disturbing displays of wealth and generosity. MBNA paid to demolish not just a number of homes and small businesses near its new facility (to establish adequately 'rural' vistas outside it's climate-controlled estate), but also an extremely unsightly abandoned factory on the coast in the downtown area. MBNA was also instrumental in establishing the Hutchinson Center of the University of Maine, an outpost of the University of Maine System, less than a mile from the main MBNA campus. The explosion of jobs provided by MBNA was offset by the soulless nature of the jobs (administering credit card accounts) and the impression that MBNA executives and the ranks of MBNA security personnel treated not just the MBNA campus but the entire town as their private fiefdom. The clash of cold hard cash versus the standard streak of Mainer independence has still not been settled, but MBNA has recently been scaling back its operations in New England after the retirement of its Camden summer resident CEO, Charles Cauley.
Today Belfast is a thriving community that relies equally on traditional fisheries and farms, tourism, the arts community, and large facilities like MBNA, the Hutchinson Center, and the National Theater Workshop for the Handicapped, which inhabits the old Crosby High School.
External links
- The City of Belfast Website (http://www.cityofbelfast.org)
- History of the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad, chartered in 1867 (http://CPRR.org/Museum/BMLRR/)
- Template:Mapit-US-cityscale
| |
|---|---|
| Capital: | |
| Regions: |
Down East | Maine Atlantic Coast | Maine Highlands | North Woods | Western Maine Mountains |
| Largest cities: |
Auburn | Augusta | Bangor | Bath | Belfast | Biddeford | Brewer | Caribou | Ellsworth | Houlton | Kittery | Lewiston | Millinocket | Old Orchard Beach | Old Town | Orono | Portland | Presque Isle | Rockland | Rumford | Saco | Sanford | South Portland | Topsham | Waterville | Westbrook |
| Counties: |
Androscoggin | Aroostook | Cumberland | Franklin | Hancock | Kennebec | Knox | Lincoln | Oxford | Penobscot | Piscataquis | Sagadahoc | Somerset | Waldo | Washington | York |