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All the United States Maine Jonesport Maine Coast Sardine History Museum
AO Edited

Maine Coast Sardine History Museum

The whole of Maine's history with the salty little fish is packed into this tiny coastal museum.

Jonesport, Maine

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cgracemo
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One of many cans of sardines at the Museum   cgracemo / Atlas Obscura User
More sardines in colorful packaging   cgracemo / Atlas Obscura User
The whistles that called the workers into the cannery   cgracemo / Atlas Obscura User
The Museum is along Rt. 187 in the coastal town of Jonesport   Image capture: Jul 2011
Out front at the Museum, and the Beach Cliff Sardine Man   Image capture: Jul 2011
The Museum’s collection of canning shears   cgracemo / Atlas Obscura User
Site of the last Sardine processing facility in the US, Prospect Harbor, Maine   Tim Rodenberg
Vintage postcard (c. 1930-45) of Maine sardine fishing boats, called “carriers”   Boston Public Library Collection
Beach Cliff Sardine Man, a Maine icon   Tim Rodenberg
The little guys, packed in like sardines   Howard Lewis Ship
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About

With a wide array of colorful tins, labels, vintage photos, and salvaged equipment, the Maine Coast Sardine Museum honors the area's long history with a little fish that brought big business to port towns all along the Maine coast.

Sardine fishing and canning in Maine goes back to the 1870s, a time when most people associate New England with a much bigger catch-of-the-day. Sure, there was whaling and cod, but sardines supported hundreds of Maine fishing families and dozens of canneries, with a peak of 75 plants operating by 1900.

Jonesport alone, a town of fewer than 1500 people, had 15 canneries of their own, inextricably linking them with the sometimes maligned oily fish. It’s a logical place to create a center to remember this once thriving ocean trade.

The museum was started by Ronnie and Mary Peabody, a couple who grew up in and around the world of sardines. In the late 20th century, as they watched the canneries, and the fishermen that supplied them, start to lose out to the global market, they decided to create a lasting tribute to their local way of life. And to sardines.

Maybe the most poignant display is the collection of delicately mounted scissors that belonged to local women who worked the canneries, each pair etched with a name to claim the shears as their own. Reading the names — Merty Alley from Jonesport, Willimena Mitchell of Milbridge, Abigail “Gusty” Beal of Beals, Maine — you leave the museum with not just the story of an industry, but of the lives and towns it shaped.

You might call the Sardine History Museum a museum that eBay built. The Peabodys had been collecting memorabilia, photos and long-outdated equipment for years, but in order to raise the funds to build a place to house it all, the couple worked the eBay market, buying and selling antiques and collectibles, and funneling the profits back into their hopes for a museum. By 2005 they had raised enough to build a small building next to their home, which now houses their collection. They are open during the summer months, happy to share their knowledge and respect for an industry born of the New England spirit.

Related Tags

Niche Museums Museums And Collections Museums Fishing Fish Industrial Food Museums

Know Before You Go

The Museum opens for the season on Tuesday June 21 and remain open through September 30. The hours are Tuesdays - Fridays & Sundays from noon to 4pm. Jonesport is along the northern coast of Maine, about 40 miles further up than Bar Harbor and 150 miles from Portland. The Museum is tucked into a small wooden building just off of the roadside. Stop in and remind yourself of an industry that once dominated the Maine coast (if not your taste buds).

Community Contributors

Added By

cgracemo

Edited By

hana, Molly McBride Jacobson

  • hana
  • Molly McBride Jacobson

Published

June 27, 2016

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  • http://penobscotmarinemuseum.org/pbho-1/collection/sardine-industry-0
  • https://roadtrippers.com/us/jonesport-me/attractions/maine-coast-sardine-history-museum?lat=40.80972&lng=-96.67528&z=5
  • http://visitmaine.com/organization/maine-coast-sardine-history-museum/?uid=vtm23B14E8C63F230379
Maine Coast Sardine History Museum
34 Mason Bay Road (RT 187)
Jonesport, Maine, 04649
United States
44.540294, -67.588042
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Nearby Places

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Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Jonesport

Jonesport

Maine

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Explore the Destination Guide

Photo of Jonesport

Jonesport

Maine

Places 3

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