Bangor, Maine’s tiny but vibrant Greek community has a long history dating back to the 1890s.
The history of large-scale Greek immigration to the United States dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when millions of Europeans opted to abandon their ancestral homes and seek a better life in the New World.
Of course, no matter where one originates from, the decision to emigrate to a distant place is never simple.
The links between one’s homeland and his soul are extraordinarily difficult to break, so the Greeks who decided to move to America did indeed have some very serious reasons to make this momentous decision.
As has been the case from the very beginning of human history, one of the main reasons for immigration is economic and financial hardship, and this was true for most Greeks in the 1800’s.
The beginnings of Greek immigration to America
The Greeks living on the Peloponnesian Peninsula suffered a huge blow in the late 1800s due to the sudden and complete collapse of the currant crop there, on which many were entirely dependent. This had been a thriving industry for decades, which had even helped the newly-established Greek state to flourish through its huge exports to Great Britain.
However, a series of misfortunes led the industry to a complete collapse in the 1890s, which was followed hard on its heels by the bankruptcy of the Greek state in 1893 and ”Black 1897,” the year when Greece and the Ottoman Empire plunged into a thirty-day war, with devastating results for the small and financially-struggling country.
The situation in Greece’s rural areas was crushing, with people not even being able to afford the basics for their families, and southern Greeks, long accustomed to hardship, faced a life-changing dilemma: Either stay and continue to suffer, or emigrate and chase the American Dream.
The vast majority of the new immigrants established themselves on the East Coast of the country, and primarily in the Northeast, from New York northward.
The First Greek in Bangor, Maine
This is how the arrival of the first Greek in Bangor, Maine, the northeasternmost state of the US, took place in the late 1890s.
George N. Brountas was born in the small village of Vamvakou, in the Peloponnesian county of Laconia, the famed land of Sparta.
The economic hardships in the Peloponnese’s Vamvakou area led him to Athens at the young age of 12, where he found a job in his uncle’s shipyard. However, the economic crisis of the time, Greece’s default of 1893 and the growing financial depression led Brountas to the courageous decision to move to America.
After years of hard work — and smart business decisions — Brountas opened the first Greek store in Bangor, called the ”Bangor Candy Kitchen.”
Soon, relatives and friends of Brountas’ came from Greece to live in Bangor, along with other Greeks from other parts of the country, such as Epirus.
Only a few decades after Brountas’ arrival in Bangor, scores of Greek families were living, working and prospering in this beautiful city in Maine. People living today remember a time when nearly every other restaurant in the city was owned by a Greek family.
