The epicenter for the Maine sardine business at the turn of the 20th century was Downeast in Eastport and Lubec, but 50 years of heavy fishing pressure coupled with intense competition between packing companies in the area forced some of the companies to look for new opportunities down the coast.
Penobscot Bay was still teeming with juvenile herring, also known as sardines. In 1910, the owners of the Lubec Sardine Company, Messrs. Pike and Peacock (surnames closely tied to the industry) purchased waterfront land from the Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad on Belfast’s harbor south of what is now the footbridge and began work on a canning factory.
The newly formed Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographed the construction of the factory. Belfast scenes were low-hanging fruit for the blossoming postcard company and 1910-11 saw some exciting additions to the town including the Corn Canning Co. and the Colonial Theater, along with the sardine factory.
The young women that worked in the postcard factory handwrote the titles directly onto the glass plate negatives…
While modern postcards focused on “pretty” views, early postcards often included gritty industrial scenes. The young women that worked in the postcard factory handwrote the titles directly onto the glass plate negatives and needed to write backwards so the title would be reversed in the printing process. “Ss” were a challenging letter to write backwards, as noted in the title in the accompanying photograph, but never will you see a backwards “T” or “I”.
The factory began canning in August of 1911 and closed in 1918, only to reopen in 1925 as Booth Fisheries.
Battered by the Depression, it operated sporadically for much of the 1930s and 1940s under a series of owners. Glenn Lawrence owned the Belfast Canning Company until his partner, Calvin Stinson, bought him out in 1953. It continued in an on-again, off-again existence through the century until it closed permanently in 2001.
When I first moved to Belfast in 2003, the factory building was still there and looked very much like it did while being constructed in 1911. After an ill-conceived plan to convert the aging structure into high end condos, the building was razed.
In 2011, a group of marine industry veterans purchased the property and constructed the Front Street Shipyard which occupies the site today.
The Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport celebrates the storied history of Maine sardine industry in its current exhibit Sardineland. The exhibit runs through Oct. 17 of 2025 and again through the 2026 season.
Kevin Johnson is the photo archivist for the Penobscot Marine Museum.
