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Commonplace
Now, But The Hunter’s Breakfast Started Here
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The grange
hall along Route 9 was the site of Maine’s original Hunters’
Breakfast for 800 hungry hunters in 1945. But that was near
the end for the hall, which closed just a few years later.
For years, the grange had been the place to go in Amherst.
Remembers Carl Humphrey: “There was nothing else to do on a
Saturday night, so we went to the grange hall.” |
What they are
still talking about in Amherst:
It was
someone’s bright idea in Amherst
to stage Maine’s first-ever Hunters’ Breakfast, which took place
in the Amherst Grange Hall in November 1945.
The opening day
for deer season resulted in not just a breakfast for 800. It
started an entire tradition of towns holding breakfasts for
hunters before they head out for what many believe is the best
single day of the year.
The year after Amherst put the idea of a hunters’ breakfast on the map, noted a
yellowed newspaper column from the town’s Historical Society,
there were as many as 50 or 60 other hunters’ breakfasts in
towns across the state.
The first
Amherst event had been so successful partially because hunters
came from Bangor to Calais—all along the Airline road.
The cooks in
Amherst started preparing the breakfast at 2:30 a.m. The meal
that sent the men into the woods on full stomachs was ham, eggs,
baked beans, toast and coffee—all for $1.50.
Hunters’
breakfasts continued as an annual happening in Amherst but did
not again draw the 800 served that first year. The breakfasts
later were switched to the town hall and ended up serving 200 or
so hunters.
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