Bath, ME

Bath: City of Ships

The town of Bath connects with the sea by way of the wide Kennebec River a few miles inland from the intricate coves and islands of the Maine coast. The deep-water river—together with stands of tall pines perfect for masts—have made the town one of the nation’s premier shipbuilding ports for the last 240 years.

Bath’s shipbuilding tradition continues today, although metal ships have long since replaced wood. And on June 23 this year, the community’s shipbuilding history entered a new era, with the last traditional-style launch of a ship, as a mighty Arleigh Burke-class naval destroyer built here by Bath Iron Works as DDG 87, or the USS Mason, glided down the inclined tracks into the Kennebec.

“In the future, we’ll use a land level transfer facility, a $240-million investment by our parent company, General Dynamics,” says Sue Pierter, director of communications for the 117-year-old Bath Iron Works. As the ships of the future became longer and more capable, the constraints on traditional launches, such as weight limits for inclines, made the world-class facility, opened in May 2001, a necessity. “The community of Bath and the state of Maine supported us through tax incentive programs, so everybody played a role in that facility,” Pierter says.

It’s a natural symbiosis: With 7,000 employees, Bath Iron Works is the largest private employer, not just in Bath (pop. 9,266), but in Maine, drawing workers from throughout the state and beyond.

“Everyone in Bath is somehow connected to Bath Iron Works, and everyone at Bath Iron Works is somehow connected to Bath,” Pierter says. “It’s a great long-term relationship. We’re all growing. We’re always working together on different issues, on neighborhood issues.”

“Obviously, Bath Iron Works is very important to Bath, to a lot of areas of Maine,” says John Hall, a local business owner and chairman of Bath City Council. “When you have an employer like that, its effects are far-reaching.”

The community’s focus on shipbuilding reflects a long heritage.

“Maine was a very significant state in the nation’s shipbuilding industry through most of the 19th century. As long as wooden shipbuilding was state of the art, Maine built more ships than any other state in the union,” says Nathan Lipfert, library director of the Maine Maritime Museum, located just along the riverbank from the Iron Works.

In fact, Lipfert says, Bath in 1856 was the nation’s largest port in terms of tonnage registered here, and no port in the state built more ships or larger vessels than Bath. Those ships included merchant, cargo, and fishing vessels, coastal and passenger steamers, and even yachts. In 1909, Bath built what the museum believes was the largest wooden sailing vessel ever—the six-masted schooner Wyoming, designed for the coastal coal trade. And through two world wars, Bath was a leading shipbuilder of cargo and combat vessels.

Today, visitors to this gateway to the Maine coast will find the state’s shipbuilding heritage kept alive at the museum, which boasts a rare historic shipyard that once built wooden ships, as well as comprehensive exhibits of the state’s maritime history.

Perhaps it’s the influence of shipbuilding’s communal nature, but John Hall believes there’s something else that makes Bath special. “We have this huge base of people who are very involved in the town, whether it’s stringing lights in trees in December or watering the flowers in the summertime. When you think about what makes a town good, you always think about how involved the people are in the community,” he says.

“It just seems that Bath has a sense of community and volunteerism and finding out what’s best for the community. Maybe that’s the idea of a New England town, and if it is, that’s exactly what Bath is.”

Freelance writer Yvonne Jeffery Hope’s base in Ottawa allows her ample opportunity to explore New England towns such as Bath.

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