Mainers (full-time, part-time, and former) who died in 2018

These people either lived in, spent time in, or had a substantial impact in Maine  -- and all died in 2018. As always, any such 'notable deaths' list will be incomplete, so forgive me if I left out anyone who deserves mention.

Rev. Robert Bryan, along with Marshall Dodge, formed the comedy duo "Bert & I" in the late 1950s, which helped to introduce Maine accents and the state's distinctly dry humor to a nationwide audience. Later in life, he became an Episcopal priest and founded the Quebec Labrador Foundation. He died Dec. 12 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, at the age of 87.

George H.W. Bush was the 41st president of the United States. He spent every summer for much of his life at his family's oceanfront compound in Kennebunkport. He died at the end of November at the age of 94.

Eugene Cole was not that well known, but his death gripped the state when he became the first law-enforcement officer in Maine in nearly 30 years to be shot and killed in the line of duty. His death on April 25 ignited a large-scale manhunt for his alleged killer, who police caught four days later as he was trying to hide in the woods a few miles away from where Cole was shot. He was 61 years old.

Donald Collins, a longtime state politician and father of U.S. Senator Susan Collins, died in March at the ago of 92.

Chris Cousins was a newspaper reporter who became best known for covering politics for the Bangor Daily News.  He began his career in 1999 at the Norway Advertiser Democrat, later worked at The Times Record and then ran the State House News Service in Augusta. From 2006 to 2007, he was the Donald W. Reynolds Fellow for Community Journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He was 42 when he died in August of a heart attack.

Milton Dysart, a co-founder of Dysart's Truck Stop in Hermon, died in May at the age of 84.

John Ford, Sr. was a former Maine game warden and Waldo County sheriff who chronicled humorous episodes from his law enforcement career in a newspaper column and multiple books. He also was criticized in October 2016 for saying at a Trump campaign rally in Bangor that he was with racists, xenophobes, homophobes, and islamophobes "all the way." He was 71 when he died in November.

Chuck Foster was a longtime Bangor-area radio disc jockey who, according to famous author Stephen King, had "the perfect DJ voice." He died in August at the age of 64.

Al Hawkes learned bluegrass music as a teenager in the 1940s while growing up in Westbrook, and grew to national prominence in the genre, both for his mandolin playing and his recording expertise, which he put to use at his Event Records recording studio in the basement of his television repair shop on Route 302. He died Dec. 28 at the age of 88.

Merton Henry, a prominent moderate Maine Republican who advised U.S. senators Margaret Chase Smith, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, died in April at the age of 92.

Stephen Hillenburg credited the summers he spent earlier in his life on Little Cranberry Island with helping to inspire the creation of SpongeBob Squarepants, the Nickelodeon television cartoon that spawned two feature films, a Broadway musical, and grew into a multi-billion dollar retail licensing powerhouse for the children's programming television network. Hillenburg, 57, died in November from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Sue Hubbell was an author, farmer, beekeeper and essayist for the New York Times and New Yorker. A Michigan native, she lived in Milbridge for many years before increasing dementia led her to move in with her son Brian Hubbell in Bar Harbor this past summer. She died in October at the age of 83.

Robert Indiana, the world-famous pop artist best known for his 1960s “LOVE” series, moved from New York City to Vinalhaven in 1978. An Indiana native, the artist was known for his desire for solitude. His isolation later in life raised concerns among people who could not get through to him and led allegations of fraud against his publisher and caretaker. He died in May at the age of 89.

James Knott invented the wire lobster trap in the 1950s in Massachusetts, but it took another 20 years before the design -- which is more durable and easier to both maintain and use than the wooden traps they supplanted -- became the tool of choice in the lobster industry. Knott, who died in August at the age of 88, never lived in Maine but his invention had a huge impact on Maine's signature seafood industry. Because of it, he received an honorary degree from University of Maine in 2006.

Doug Rafferty was a longtime reporter and anchor for WGME, the CBS affiliate in Portland. He suffered an on-air stroke in 2006 and later filed a discrimination lawsuit against the station, which was settled out of court in 2013. He died at age of 66 in October, hours after arriving in Hawaii to visit his daughter.

John Wulp, an award-winning director, producer, playwright, designer, visual artist and educator, moved from New York to Vinalhaven in 1992. In 1978 he won a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play for his production of “Dracula” on Broadway and, after moving to Maine, staged many plays with local students and other community members at Waterman's Community Center on Vinalhaven. He died in November at the age of 90.

Welcome to 'Eelsworth': Why Ellsworth, Maine should declare itself the Eel Capital of America

Why not?

OK, I'm not really suggesting the city should change its name -- not even by one letter -- because I just don't think the city needs to reinvent itself that badly. Ismay, Montana, may have changed its name to Joe because it needed to fix its fire truck, but Ellsworth is not in danger of fading away.

But I am serious about the city claiming the title "The Eel Capital of America." For starters, no other place in the country has done it yet, and Ellsworth has a better claim on the honorific than most other places I can think of.

Maine fishermen easily catch more live eels, in the form of elvers (yearling eels), than any other state (and generate millions of dollars each year in fishing revenue). The state has an annual catch quota of 9,688 pounds, which is believed to account for more than 19 million individual elvers, roughly 2,000 of which add up to one pound. South Carolina, which is the only other state where elver fishing is allowed, issues only 10 licenses a year and produces annual harvests that amount to a few hundred pounds.

The Union River, which flows directly through Ellsworth, is one of the most productive elver rivers in Maine. It consistently ranks in the top five for elver landings, along with the Medomak, Penobscot and Presumpscot rivers. The buyers who show up in Ellsworth during fishing season each spring set up shop along Water Street and other side streets, amplifying the visibility of the fishery beyond the dozens of fyke nets that typically are set up along either bank of the river on the mile-long section from Indian Point to the Leonard Lake dam.

So why should Ellsworth do this? Well, it would help promote the city and could help draw more visitors to Ellsworth -- or at least get Acadia-bound tourists to stop in Ellsworth on their way to Mount Desert Island. More specifically, the self-proclaimed title could help boost interest in an annual elver festival, or some such event that would raise the city's profile both in and outside Maine.

On Saturday, the first-ever Union River Festival, geared toward raising awareness about the health and ecological importance of the river, was held at the city's waterfront park. It was a nice gathering that did not attract a big crowd (gotta start somewhere), but it could easily be brought back next year as an eel-themed event.

Eels are weird, and therefore intriguing, and the notoriety of the fishery (which has largely subsided  since the "glass rush" years of 2012 and 2013) likely would add to the public's interest in attending the event. And the more people show up, the more money they would spend in the city and the more they would learn about how protecting the river helps to protect the eels (and alewives, seals, cormorants, ospreys, bald eagles, elver fishermen, kayakers, and others) who rely on it.

This map shows all the rural Maine towns that have closed their public schools since 2004

This map was part of a project that has not come to fruition, but is informative enough on its own that it is worth posting. It shows every school in small-town Maine that has closed since roughly 2004, leaving behind no public school in that town.

There have been more schools than these that have closed in Maine in the past 12 years, but I have omitted those in towns that still have other schools, or which opened new ones in conjunction with closing others. The point of this map is to show the towns that made the painful decision to close their last remaining school and to have whatever schoolchildren they have left travel out of town each weekday.



For some, the distance is minor. Middle and high school students that used to attend school in Livermore Falls earlier this decade now attend school two-and-a-half miles away in neighboring Jay, making a seamless journey each day across a boundary hardly visible between the two close-knit communities.

For others, the closure is more impactful. Eagle Lake closed its school in 2017 and now sends its students each weekday to Fort Kent, more than 15 miles away. Students from Rockwood have to ride nearly 20 miles to Greenville each morning and then back each afternoon. In Vanceboro, which closed its school in 2015, students now board buses that travel 22 miles -- one way -- to school every day in Topsfield.

For each of those commutes, the edge of town is followed by a long stretch of two-lane road cutting through tracts of sparsely developed forest before, miles later, the next hamlet pulls into view. The distance is both physical and psychological. The sense of isolation is not as profound in every case, but the void left by closing schools is palpable for many people.

The school closures represent a broader issue in Maine -- one of small-town erosion brought on by escalating school costs and the increasingly global economy. Small businesses have a hard time competing against national chains or internet retail giants; local manufacturing or resource extraction jobs dry up; young people and families move away; local institutions shrink and shut down. Many equate the closure of a town's only or last remaining school with a rural community's slow death.

And when this happens in Maine 45 towns over the course of 10 years, it's hard not to think that a big part of Maine's history and culture is dissolving.

It is true that change is constant in nearly every visible aspect of life, and not all change is bad. But changes, good and bad, that stir up deep feelings of memory and identity are worth documenting. This is what I hope to contribute to with this map.

Thai restaurant in Ellsworth that tried to raise $25,000 online to pay overdue tax bill goes bust

A Thai restaurant in Ellsworth that tried to raise $25,000 through an online GoFundMe campaign to pay its back taxes has gone bust.

The Bangkok Restaurant had been in business in Ellsworth since 1987. It had operated at 78 Downeast Highway for roughly the past 10 years.

A foreclosure auction on the property had been scheduled for Friday, Feb. 16 -- but apparently it has been postponed, according to the online auction listing on the Central Maine Auction Center website.  The 1.25-acre property and 3,100 square-foot restaurant together have an assessed value of $736,000, according to the city's online assessing database.

When the auction may be held is not clear. I emailed the auction company to find out but have not heard back from them.

The restaurant was behind by about $21,000 on its property taxes in early 2017, according to the Bangor Daily News, and was hoping to raise $25,000 in donations through a GoFundMe campaign. More than 100 people donated to the campaign, but fundraising fell short with only $9,000 being raised toward the $25,000 goal.

Fireball whiskey is closing in on Allen's coffee brandy in chase to be Maine's favorite booze

Three 50-milliliter 'nip' bottles of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky lay on a table with a pack of cards.

I used to make sure every year that I kept abreast of the annual sales figures in Maine for Allen's Coffee Flavored Brandy, which for years has been far and away the state's best selling brand of booze.

But it has been a while since I got the official yearly totals for all liquor sales in the state, and just when I was gearing up to ask the state Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations (BABLO) for recent statistics, the Portland Press Herald published a story on liquor sales totals for 2017.

The PPH story does a pretty good job of explaining how the dominance of Allen's Coffee Flavored Brandy seems to be slipping while a new upstart (albeit one with a national profile) has bitten off a sizeable market share in the state, one nip at a time.

Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, the rocketing sales of which the BDN wrote about in January 2016, is now the second-most popular liquor in Maine. If its sales growth does not slow down significantly over the next 11 months, it will displace Allen's CFB from the top spot in 2018.

But before I go too much further, I need to point out that I think a couple of the sales totals reported by the PPH on Sunday are inaccurate. On Tuesday, after I read the PPH story, I requested and received the same data from BABLO -- including what I believe are incorrect tallies for 2013.

Four years ago, I received the 2013 liquor sales totals from the state -- which the BDN reported on -- and those tallies are much different from the totals for that same year that BABLO sent me this week.
In addition, the 2013 sales totals I got Tuesday are way off compared to other years immediately before and after 2013.

For example, according to my archived data $11.7 million of Allens CFB was sold in Maine in 2012. For 2013, the Allens CFB numbers I have are $11.4 million (what I got 4 years ago) and $5.9 million (what I got this week). Then for 2014, the total I have for Allens CFB is $11 million.

If the correct sales total for Allens CFB is $5.9 million, why would they drop by nearly half from 2012 to 2013, and then nearly double again in 2014? It doesn’t make sense. And, if it really happened that way, then the Maine media completely missed a pretty big business news story. I think the $11.4 million sales total for 2013 is the accurate figure -- not the $5.9 million figure. I don't think any of the sales data for 2013 sent out in recent weeks by BABLO is accurate.

At any rate, it doesn't really make a difference to the main thrust of the PPH story, which is that Allen's CFB sales are declining while those of Fireball -- and, to a lesser extent, Tito's Handmade Vodka -- are taking off. But there are a few more things I want to point out on this topic that aren't mentioned, at least not explicitly, in the PPH piece.

• Sales of Fireball already have surpassed another longtime favorite in Maine: Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum. In 2016, Captain Morgan's had $6.1M in sales in Maine, versus $5.5M for Fireball, but last year trailed Fireball by nearly $2.2M. Captain Morgan's, which had ranked 2nd in sales in Maine since at least 2009, came in fourth in 2017 (not third) by also trailing Tito's Handmade Vodka by nearly $300,000 in sales revenue.

• Other popular brands also have had declining sales, among them Orloff Vodka (80 proof), Bacardi Light rum, and non-flavored Absolut all have been perennial Top 5 brands in Maine but are getting pushed down the list by Fireball and Tito's.

• Allens’ sales revenue has been declining in Maine since 2009, when it peaked at $12.95 million.

• Fireball's annual sales increases have been astounding. Fireball's total sales (all bottles sizes) more than doubled over the prior year in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and grew by roughly 150 percent in 2016 and again in 2017.

• Most of that growth has been driven by the popularity of its 50ml 'nips,' which now rank 2nd statewide behind Allens CFB's half gallon. Fireball nips generated only $250,000 in sales for Fireball in 2013 -- not even in the top 100 -- but in 2014 sales of the nips jumped 250 percent to $634,922. The following year, they more than doubled again, netting $1.4 million in gross sales. In 2016, they doubled again to more than $2.8 million. Last year, they jumped $1.9 million (only 67%) to $4.7 million sold in Maine.

• The increase in popularity in Fireball has not been all that "organic," as some have suggested. It used to be part of the Dr. McGillicuddy's lineup until 2007, when it was rebranded simply as "Fireball" and the fictitious doctor's name was dropped from the label. Sazerac (which makes Fireball) then put forth a significant marketing effort to popularize the renamed product which, apparently, has worked remarkably well. More about that marketing effort can be read here.

And, just in case Sazerac is looking for a catchy song -- or perhaps marionette spokespeople -- to use to boost the ongoing meteoric trajectory of Fireball, I'll leave you with this:

These non-European immigrants are big contributors to their Maine communities

In light of news stories this week about the pro-white, pro-separatist town manager of Jackman, I thought it might be good to post a few links here to stories about non-European, non-Caucasian  immigrants in small towns in Maine who have had an impact on the communities where they live and work. Not only have they been made to feel welcome in the state, but they have had  positive influences on their local communities and are very much appreciated by local residents and officials for the significant contributions they have made to those communities.

It's not a comprehensive list, but just a quick few examples I can think of off the top of my head:

• Ben Okafor from Nigeria, who opened a pharmacy in Eastport after national chains bought out and closed the last one there, temporarily forcing local residents to travel to Calais or Machias to get needed medications.
• Romana Vazquez from Mexico, who with her husband and family owns and operates Vazquez Mexican Takeout restaurant in Milbridge. They started out operating out of an old bus in Deblois, selling food directly to blueberry rakers during the harvest each summer, but have had a seasonal take out business on Route 1 in Milbridge village since 2014.
• Habib Dagher from Lebanon, who as executive director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center at University of Maine has been honored by the White House for his Bridge-In-A-Backpack design and has led the state's efforts to develop technology for commercial floating ocean wind turbines.
• Vero Poblete-Howell from Chile, who owns Baobab Organics Inc. and co-owns Cider Hill Farm in Waldoboro.

Needless to say, there are many more than the few I list here. 

It also is worth mentioning that the vast majority of Maine residents are, if not immigrants, descended from European immigrants, the first of which tried (and failed) to colonize St. Croix Island on the Maine/New Brunswick border in 1604. If anyone has a claim for which culture and ethnicity should be preserved in  Maine, it is the native tribes -- the Passamaquoddys, the Penobscots, the Micmacs and the Maliseets -- who were here before any Europeans were even aware of the existence of North America (as it is called now).

So for those of us whose ancestors wanted to establish a home here -- and who don't want to be told to leave by those who were here first -- it is only just and fair that we welcome and try to make room for others who want to same, even if they don't speak or dress as we do or have some social customs and traditions different than ours.

Walmart tells South Carolina paper it will replace mislabeled lighthouse photo in Ellsworth store

I found out today that a newspaper reporter in South Carolina saw this tweet about the picture in the Ellsworth Walmart (shown above) that I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.

Apparently, she contacted Walmart about the picture, which is of a lighthouse and marina in Hilton Head, South Carolina but has the words "Bar Harbor, ME" printed in bold type at the top. The picture is mounted overlooking the "tourist" merchandise section of the store, where they have t-shirts, sweatshirts, baseball caps, shot glasses, etc., with "Bar Harbor" or "Acadia National Park" or other local place names printed on them.

None of the items for sale had any images of Hilton Head that were mislabeled as Bar Harbor. Only the one sign had the error.

Reporter Maggie Angst (great name, btw - she should be in a punk band) of The Island Packet in Hilton Head called Walmart to ask why they had confused the two tourist towns.

Walmart did not explain how the mixup happened but they did tell her that the display "will be replaced with a different photo," she wrote.

"Hopefully, this time, it's an actual photo of Bar Harbor, Maine," Angst wrote.

I don't think it's too much to ask.

Angst's story can be read here.

Walmart has mistaken Hilton Head in South Carolina for Bar Harbor, Maine.

This is a photo I took this week inside the Walmart store in Ellsworth, Maine. It is a retail scene that seems pretty familiar in the area, given the  number of stores that sell merchandise with "Acadia" or "Bar Harbor" emblazoned on them. Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park get millions of tourists each summer who come to the Mount Desert Island region to enjoy its rugged, seaside scenery. A fair number of those tourists stop in the Ellsworth Walmart on their way to or from Bar Harbor.

But take a closer look at the picture mounted above the sweatshirts. If you have a hard time making it out, check out this zoomed-in version:

Looks nice, doesn't it? The boats tied up in the marina create a relaxing, leisurely atmosphere. The sky in the background has the soothing tones of a sunset (or maybe a sunrise). The lights and building across the water have an inviting, welcoming feel. And that lighthouse looks downright majestic, like a fortified tower in a Hollywood movie.

But there's a problem. A big problem. It's the kind of thing that people and local officials in Bar Harbor, which is only 20 miles from Ellsworth, are likely to take a keen interest in, given the great care they take in protecting the picturesque appearance and visual character of their town, which is Maine's top tourist destination.

Not that the photo shows anything unpleasant. It's just that the scene depicted in the photo is nowhere near Bar Harbor. What the photo actually shows is a lighthouse and marina more than 1,200 miles away in the lovely seaside resort community of Hilton Head, South Carolina.

It took me maybe half a second once I gave the the photo a serious look to realize it was not Bar Harbor at all. There is no lighthouse on the Bar Harbor waterfront, for one thing, and no palm trees anywhere outside in the state of Maine.

Though I have been to Hilton Head, I did not immediately recognize the scene shown in the photo. I had to go home and Google "red and white striped lighthouse" for about two minutes before I had the proper ID. Not surprisingly, there are lots of photos online similar to the one above, even postcards with "Hilton Head" printed on them in large type. For example:

How did Walmart get this so wrong? I can get that somebody somewhere in their marketing department at company HQ in Arkansas might not have a clue what either Bar Harbor or Hilton Head look like. Still, someone in the Ellsworth store had to install the display.

Has that person never made the half-hour trip down the road to one of the most scenic places in New England? Did they just not notice? Did they just not care enough, or maybe were too timid to say anything? Has no one approached store management to ask about it? It's all very weird.

And it is slightly off-putting that Walmart would be so oblivious or indifferent to the serious marketing efforts being made daily just down the road by the many people involved in the tourist industry, which is the biggest in the state - or, for that matter, to the tourism marketing professionals in South Carolina who want to lure vacationers to Hilton Head. Tourist communities are known to be very careful about maintaining their images as alluring destinations, and properly identifying popular attractions as being in or near their towns is a big part of those efforts.

I know this kind of thing matters to business owners in Bar Harbor, especially the relatively large number that cater to the tourist industry (many of whom, incidentally, shop at the Ellsworth Walmart). You would think that if Walmart also wants to sell stuff to those same tourists, and wants to keep local tourism business owners as customers, it be would be more attentive to the multi-hundred-million-dollar tourism mecca 20 miles away that is the whole reason why those tourists are driving by their store in the first place.

That said, I cannot believe the photo was misidentified on purpose, and such a nondescript placard is not likely to have any affect, good or bad, on the local tourism industry. But accuracy is nice. And if Walmart were to quickly fix the mistake, thereby demonstrating that it is an earnest and responsive part of the local community where it does business, it would be almost just as good.

Here's a quick list of some notable Mainers who died in 2017

Some of these people were well known in Maine, and others had reputations that extended well beyond the state boundary. Some lived in Maine, some were born here, and others had strong connections to the state. All of them died in 2017.

(In alphabetical order)
Peter Alfond was a philanthropist whose family earned billions of dollars in the shoe business and by investing in Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. He died July 10 at age 65 from malaria.

Frank Anicetti, founder of The Moxie Festival and longtime promoter of the soft drink, died May 22 at the age of 77. Anicetti's Kennebec Fruit Company store in Lisbon had become a defacto Moxie museum since Anicetti launched the festival in 1977. The drink, which originated in Maine, was named the state's official soft drink in 2005.

Ingrid Bengis-Palei became well-known as a writer at a young age but later in life achieved renown among exclusive chefs for supplying them with fresh seafood caught in the waters off Stonington, where she lived. She died July 13 from cancer at the age of 72.

David Moses Bridges was a member of the Passamaquoddy Tribe widely known for his traditional craftsmanship of birch bark canoes and baskets. He died on Jan. 20 at the age of 54 from cancer of the sinus.

Arthur P. Brountas, a businessman and former mayor of Bangor, died Oct. 30 at the age of 90.

Dave Cloutier was a former UMaine football star who went on to become the first Mainer to play for the Patriots NFL team. He died Nov. 6 at his home in Florida at the age of 78.

Richard B. Dudman retied to Maine after an extensive and varied journalism career but continued to write, penning more than 1,000 editorials for the Bangor Daily News. A longtime Ellsworth resident and member of the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame, he died August 3 in Blue Hill at the age of 99.

Marvin Glazier, a longtime defense attorney in Bangor, died Nov. 23 of cancer at the age of 72.

Dahlov Ipcar, a famous painter who illustrated more than 30 children's books, died Feb. 10 at her home in Georgetown. She was 99 years old.

Daniel G. Lilley, a prominent criminal defense attorney in Portland, died March 11 at the age of 79.

Andy Mays, a Southwest Harbor scallop fisherman who served on local and state fisheries-related panels and who was featured on the Colbert Report television comedy program after he sought police help when he misplaced of bucket of scallop gonads, died Dec. 28 after battling cancer for nearly three years. He was 53 years old.

Lois Dickson Rice, a native of Portland who went on to become an education policy expert and advocate, and whose daughter Susan Rice became President Obama's National Security Adviser, died Jan. 4 at the age of 83.

David Rockefeller, the billionaire philanthropist and former chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, died March 20 at the age of 101. Rockefeller, whose family made a fortune in the oil business and helped create Acadia National Park, had extensive landing holdings on Mount Desert Island, where Rockefellers have summered for more than 100 years.

Clara Swan, a graduate of Husson College who later became an educator, administrator, and a longtime successful basketball coach at the school, died in January at the age of 104.

Beth Warren, community service devotee and wife to BDN Publisher Richard J. Warren, died Sept. 17 at the age of 69.

David J. Witham, a longtime hotelier in Bar Harbor whose rivalry with fellow hotelier Thomas Walsh riveted the town's business community for 20 years, died Nov. 25 in Boston from complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 77 years old.

On Friday, the Ellsworth American posted this story on Mainers who died in 2017, some of whom are mentioned above.

Ellsworth's economy, once reliant on retail, is getting creative

Ken Perrin blows air into a molten blob of glass at an open studio event at Atlantic Art Glass in Ellsworth on Dec. 16, 2017.

Ellsworth, nicknamed "the crossroads of Downeast Maine," has long been where Hancock County residents can buy mundane stuff -- groceries, automobiles, casual clothes, etc. The few strip malls, car repair shops, government offices and fast-food drive-thrus gave the city a no-frills, utilitarian feel; a place to run needed errands, but not a place to linger.

That drab reputation has contrasted sharply with much of the surrounding area, which is known for the rugged scenic shoreline and mountainous beauty of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park, as well as the Blue Hill and Schoodic peninsulas. Ellsworth, useful as it may be, just doesn't captivate the imagination as do other more idyllic towns along the Maine coast.

But in recent years the city has been subtly diversifying and is starting to develop an added reputation as a good place to make stuff, too. Not mass-produced widgets or cheeseburgers, but low-volume (mostly), high-craftmanship specialty items. Skilled, creative people looking to ply their wares and to come together to help define their community are doing it in Ellsworth.

One of the most immediate reasons for this is the coastal Maine real estate market - especially on MDI, where Acadia takes up thousands of acres and where seasonal tourist-oriented businesses and residential properties otherwise dominate the landscape. Property is at a premium on the island (and elsewhere along the coast) and getting more expensive all the time, making it a challenging place for non-tourism or property (i.e., real estate, building trades, etc.) businesses to operate.

And houses on MDI are not cheap. People who work regular jobs and who want to live on MDI have to compete against better-heeled people from out of state and want to own a summer home next to Acadia, or against investment buyers who want to own and operate vacation rentals on the island. Many working would-be home buyers purchase homes in Trenton or Ellsworth, often for prices much lower than what MDI has to offer.

It is not just individual people, some of who make and sell specialty items and need work space as well as a home, who run into this problem.

Hinckley, the MDI yacht maker, bought and developed land in Trenton in the late 1990s when it decided to expand its luxury picnic boat business because A) that's where there was adequate space at a reasonable price and B) it is closer to where many of their skilled craftsmen and women live off-island. Rainwise, the weather instruments maker, moved from downtown Bar Harbor to Trenton in 2013, for more room and to simplify the logistics of shipping its products.

The Jackson Laboratory, the world-renown biomedical research lab, is moving the lion's share of its research mouse production division to Ellsworth (into the renovated former Lowe's retail store) for the same reasons: there is more room to grow, at a cheaper cost, and it simplifies transportation issues - both for shipping its mice to customers and for its employees to who currently commute to Bar Harbor from as far away as Bangor or Washington County.

What is happening in Ellsworth -- specifically, in downtown Ellsworth -- doesn't directly involve these companies, however. It involves smaller operators who have a more immediate (i.e., local) audience in mind.

There have been restaurants operating on lower Main Street for decades, and skilled craftspeople at Beals Jewelry and Pyramid Studios, but the current growth of the city's downtown creative community can trace its roots back to the early and mid-2000s.

In 2002, Rich Hanson and his wife Cary opened Cleonice on Main Street, and their upscale international cuisine immediately kicked up the city's culinary options by several notches. The restaurant quickly attracted a loyal following and drew people from a wide radius. Within a few years, Hanson became the first restaurateur ever in Ellsworth to be named a semi-finalist for the James Beard Awards' Best Chef Northeast.

Three years later in 2005, glassblowers Ken and Linda Perrin moved their Atlantic Art Glass studios from Bar Harbor to an old brick warehouse on Pine Street, one block south of Main Street, primarily for the additional room it afforded them. Once they had the space, they wanted to get more involved in the community by offering workshops and hosting other arts training opportunities, and so created Artsworth, a nonprofit arts outreach organization.

Since then, over the past 12-15 years, the presence of the arts and the diversification of culinary options in downtown Ellsworth has continued to grow.

Courthouse Gallery Fine Arts opened in 2006. SevenArts Gallery and jeweler Cara Romano have opened shops in the Flexit Cafe building. The Grand Auditorium, a longtime mainstay for the performing arts in eastern Maine, improved its facilities and continues to offer a variety of programming (films, ballet, live music, theater, etc.).

On the gastronomy side, things have changed since I last blogged about Ellsworth's food and drink options nearly six years ago, the most significant change being the tragic death of Rich Hanson, who passed away in the fall of 2016.

Rich and Cary closed Cleonice in 2014, after moving up the street and trying a different approach by teaming with the Maine Grind. They also ran Table restaurant in Blue Hill for two summers, while also running Cleonice. In 2015 they took a turn at operating the Raven's Nest in Winter Harbor (in the former Mama's Boy Bistro, owned by Roxanne Quimby) before moving to Florida, where Rich later passed away.

His influence lives on. 86 This, owned and operated by former Table employees Jeff and Diane Kelly-Lokocz, has since moved into a bigger space further up Main Street. A restaurant called Provender just opened in the space formerly occupied by Cleonice (after Cellar Bistro operated there for a few years), maintaining the status of the location as a higher-end eatery, which was first established by the Hansons.

The Maine Grind is now the aforementioned Flexit Cafe, ably owned and operated by local husband-and-wife duo Paul Markosian and Lorena Stearns (who also own Finn's three doors down). The space formerly occupied by 86 This, at the lower traffic light on Main Street, now is home to Serendib, an authentic (and quite good) Indian and Sri Lankan restaurant.

And now Ellsworth has its own beer, too. Airline Brewing, which makes mostly English-style ales in Amherst, opened its own Old World-style pub next to The Grand in 2016. And just in December, Fogtown Brewing opened the city's first craft brewery (they actually make their beer in Ellsworth) in a renovated space directly underneath the Perrins' glass studio.

Does all this mean Ellsworth has been reborn, or is now home to a genuine artistic/creative scene? Making that assertion might be a bit of a stretch.

Ellsworth still is weighed down by the decline of brick-and-mortar retail. Much of the Maine Coast Mall is unoccupied, Lowe's closed in 2011 after less than 3 years in business, and Tim Hortons on outer State Street went under a few months ago. The former J and B Atlantic store on Main Street remains empty since it closed in 2016, though it did house the temporary Holiday Marketplace this December and a dance studio has opened in part of the space.

The city also lacks a first-run movie theater (the one at the mall closed in 2015) and a genuine bookstore, though you can buy books at some places like Walmart or Union River Book and Toy store, which is geared toward kids. Nor does it have a downtown boutique hotel that might appeal to some tourists (unlike Bangor, Stonington, Belfast, Camden and Rockland, to name a few). There are some farms in Ellsworth and surrounding towns, but it seems there is more room for agricultural growth in and around the city.

City officials, to their credit, has been actively trying to diversify Ellsworth's business base to include sectors other than traditional retail, the writing for which has been on the walls for a decade or more. The city helped guide the Perrins through the permitting process when they purchased and converted the Pine Street warehouse into their studio, and according to the Fogtown brewers the city planning office was very encouraging when they walked in to ask about opening a brewery.

Ellsworth also has been actively encouraging outdoor recreational development, which in the city used to be limited to a few small trails at the Birdsacre wildlife sanctuary or Woodlawn Museum. It lobbied the state to extend the Downeast Sunrise Trail into central Ellsworth (behind the L.L. Bean outlet); it developed a walking trail along the old rail line between Birch Avenue and North Street; and in 2010 it opened the Branch Lake Public Forest. When it closed the Moore and Knowlton schools (consolidating students at the renovated middle school up the road), it converted the Moore building into a community center and the Knowlton property into a public park.

The city's resources are limited, of course, and it does not have the ability to compete with the federal funding that makes Acadia National Park possible. Nor can it magically create scenic coastal views such as those found on MDI or at any other numerous picturesque locales along the coast. But, aside from cheaper housing, it does have other advantages over several towns in the area.

Like much of the state, Ellsworth greatly benefits from the summer tourist season, but it is much less seasonal than nearby coastal towns. Many stores (not all) get boarded up for the winter in Blue Hill, Stonington, Northeast Harbor, and even in Bar Harbor -- a phenomenon many shopkeepers there have been trying to resist for decades -- but in Ellsworth such seasonal closures are nearly nonexistent. The swings between summer madness and winter doldrums are less dramatic, and less visible to the casual observer.

The city's location, relative to surrounding towns, also is an advantage. It is roughly a half-hour drive from Ellsworth to the MDI villages of Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor, and Southwest Harbor; to Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor; to Blue Hill and to Bucksport - and it is the central community that connects many of these towns to each other. All of them are easily accessible from Ellsworth for work commutes, trips to the shore, or outings in Acadia. Bangor, which has more entertainment and job opportunities than anywhere else in eastern Maine, is a little more than a half hour away.

It is the combination of these things that is making Ellsworth a more appealing place for artisans to set up shop, and to live in general - and it could have other indirect economic benefits.

As the city attracts more skilled people who make and sell their own products - be they farmers, brewers, artisans, or purveyors of locally made food - it might help breathe a little life back into the traditional retail sector that has suffered over the past decade. And it could help create a more 'genuine' (i.e., year-round and affordable) community that would have its own appeal among the area's tourist destinations.