Any Idea Where 8th – 12th Streets Here in Bangor Disappeared to?

Until recently, I never really gave any thought to Bangor's numbered streets.

When I was a little kid, I lived on 4th Street, and spent plenty of time playing on the playground near 14th Street. But never once, in all these years, did I even think about any of the other numbered streets.

If you're traveling around Bangor, either on foot or in a car, once you get to the tiny little sliver of road that is 7th Street, the numbers just stop. And then on the other side of Hayford Park, 13th Street picks back up again.

So where are 8th - 12th Streets?

I checked out a thread on the You know you grew up in Bangor Facebook page from a while back, and there were several practical answers. The most likely seems that over the course of the history of Bangor, names simply got changed. Also, some may have been swallowed up by the golf course, and others may have disappeared when Dow Air Base was built.

But, after spending some more time online looking at old maps from the city, it would seem occasional progress/gentrification is the ultimate culprit. But it doesn't stop being confusing for people from away who may find the inconsistency turns us into a mini Boston.

Not all the streets seem to go by the numbers...

If you're trying to navigate your way through town, and you're looking for 13th street for instance, you're going to lose it after West Broadway. Or if you're coming up from Main Street, you have Sanford Street between 2nd and 3rd. It all seems very confusing to me. Especially if you're not from here.

Luckily though, Bangor is not a gigantic city, and getting lost is more of a slight inconvenience than a serious issue. But still, it still makes us Bangorians look like we don't know how to count. And while that may be true sometimes, we should probably just keep it to ourselves.

I wonder if this subject ever came up on Jeopardy? Well, these other things did.