It was the "golden age" that many refer to as a "simpler time". The population of Brunswick was roughly 6,500 persons and the Cabot Mill was the Town's largest employer. Electric streetcars ran through Brunswick and Bath and linked the towns with Lewiston and beyond.

Carpeting was sold locally for only fifty-cents per square yard and a brand new bicycle could be bought for only twenty-one dollars. Seven trains per day allowed rides on the Maine Coast Rail Road from Brunswick to Portland for just thirty-five cents, and the Brunswick Telegraph newspaper, a forerunner to The Times Record, printed twice per week at only three cents per copy.

Advertisements described Merrymeeting Park as a magical place that "attracts thousands" per day and was "fun from start to finish". The park was "located at the bend of the Androscoggin River", in the shadows of the present day Merrymeeting Plaza and streetcars delivered passengers right to the Park's grand entrance on Bath Road.

The local Streetcar trolley run by the Lewiston, Brunswick, and Bath Street Railway, linked the three towns and offered its passengers a five-cent ride that also included admission to the new Merrymeeting Park, which was built to be "a recreational reason for using the trolley". The Railway owners, who were instrumental in the establishment of the park, had great hopes for the Parks long-lived success.

Merrymeeting Park was built on a spatial "140 acres" of land situated between Bath Road and the Androscoggin River. The land was once used as a shipyard and had been where the old "Humphrey's steam sawmill" once operated.

The park opened at ten each morning and closed at eleven each night. Many came to walk over the hand-sculptured walking paths, or for the "greased pig" contests, and many often stayed for the grand fireworks shows held late in the evenings.

"Bare-headed young women in white gowns and peek-a-boo waists" displaying "that carefree look" joined "young men in summer togs" to see the sights and take pleasure in dances, clam bakes, and picnics. The park was an immediate success and Merrymeeting boasted of having "ten thousand people its first day".

Visitors arriving by trolley would disembark at the grand entrance that stood mostly where the Autometrics business on Bath Road is located today. This grand doorway to the park was a large wooden-ramp type walkway that traversed in bridge-like form over the Maine Coast Rail Road tracks and provided a means of access for both pedestrians and horse or ox drawn carts. Additionally, an alternate ground level entrance ran through what is now Moody's Auto Parts and continued past today's Dragon Cement Plant.

Once inside the park visitors first views of the grounds was spectacular. There were large open areas covered by well-manicured "broad lawns" with "exquisite flower beds" and rock lined walking paths leading over any one of the park's six "rustic bridges".

Many a day-tripper visited the colorful merry-go-round and enjoyed its musical ride before going on to other attractions found deeper within the park, where pleasurable music filled the air and the heavenly scents of outdoor cooking fed the senses.

The park also had an extraordinary zoo that featured many common, and not so common, animal attractions. Grazing in the fields were antelope, elk, caribou, moose, and Utah steer. In the pens were timber wolves, a northern Maine wildcat, red fox, horses, and on display was an immense, stuffed, arctic polar bear. Sheep and goats grazed freely and two fenced-in Maine black bears named "Josie" and "Major" were of particular attraction to visitors.

Enclosures displayed hawks and cockatoos, eagles and owls, peacocks, monkeys and baboons. There was even an alligator, a boa constrictor, western American rattlesnakes, and two very large loggerhead sea turtles. There was also a diving platform where two white horses performed daily, diving into a pond from a ramp nearly twenty feet aloft.

The park offered its visitors a majestic four thousand seat "open air amphitheater" that was set in a peaceful, pastoral, forest-like setting. This is where stage entertainment such as outdoor concerts, vaudeville acts, local bands, minstrel shows, and various comedians, performed.

Theatrical acts such as "J.W. Gorman's Cosmopolitan Company" and the "New York Comedy Company" took to the stage and "the Pettengill Orchestra", "Marie de Rosett", and "The Bell of Boston" offered cultural diversions.

Spiritual revivals, a common event of the era, were also held at the Park. Often, the celebrated reverend Elijah Kellogg, "the Grand old Man of Harpswell", gave temperance lectures and Sunday sermons and was very popular with park visitors and local parishioners.

The park also featured a boathouse museum, a duck filled pond, and an old Native-American burial site. And, near the zoo, there was an outdoor refreshment stand where ice cream, soda, salted peanuts, popcorn, and all the summer-time treats, were readily available.

There was a large wooden dock-like dance pavilion that allowed hundreds of couples to dance the night way under the illumination of the stars and of gas lit street lamps. The pavilion extended over a man-made lagoon and added the romantic backdrop of white swans swimming freely while visitors enjoyed relaxing boat rides upon its gentle waters.

Aside from all of these attractions the Park also contained a palatial casino that was set upon a hill overlooking the Androscoggin River, approximately where route one and Brunswick's Walking path are located today.

The structure of the casino filled a full acre of land and towered four stories high with a cupola-like widows-watch serving as an observation deck, allowing its patrons vast views of the river and of Cow and Driscoll Islands.

The cedar-shingled structure was immense yet inviting. It had two palatial wrap-around decks, which made up the outer perimeter of the casino building. On these decks people could gather, enjoy the cool summer breezes coming off the Androscoggin River, or sit and talk about news and local gossip.

Inside the Casino there were two major dinning rooms each with a "grand fireplace". These dining halls offered all guests "fine table service and elegant cooking" that, according to the Brunswick Telegraph, were "an agreeable surprise". Merrymeeting Park advertised that these dining rooms could nearly seat "a thousand" guests.

The menu at the Casino offered a "regular shore dinner" with a choice of lobster or broiled chicken, seafood stew or chowder, and fresh breads and vegetables, with ice cream, sherbet, or assorted cakes, for only fifty-cents. However, the European menu offered choices of fresh "steaks or chops, game or broiled lobster, crabs and clams, salads, cold meats, pastry, ice cream, sherbets", and cakes or pies, all for a reasonable seventy-five cents.

Of course, no grand style meal was complete without an after-dinner "Merrymeeting Cigar" only ten-cents for the gentlemen, or a freshly made, chocolaty, "Merrymeeting kiss" at only twenty-cents per pound for ladies and the family.

Additionally, there was a lunch counter where patrons on the go could get a sandwich, a cup of coffee, a slice of pie, or a bowl of soup. Patrons could also enjoy tea, hot chocolate, or a bottle of cold ginger ale bottled in Brunswick by the Pine Spring Water Company.

The Casino itself had "four gaming rooms" that offered cards, board games, and other various games of chance, such as roulette and dice. Moreover, the Brunswick Telegraph described the casino as having a "bowling alley", a "pool", and a "billiards" room.

This amusement park was, in all actuality, although located well inland on the rivers bank, a grand seaside resort. Moms and dads often packed up their families, boarded the trolley, and came to the park for a full weekend of fun and relaxation.

The park, although grand and impressive, was not a one of a kind, in fact, similar parks existed elsewhere in Maine. "Merrymeeting Park� like Casco Castle in South Freeport and Riverton Park in Portland" were giddy and wondrous places to take the family for a visit, have a family reunion, or to just wile-away the hours of the day. However, the days of these popular and adventuresome places like Merrymeeting Park were quickly coming to an end.

By the summer of 1906, Teddy Roosevelt was in his second term as President of the United States and Bowdoin College graduate Robert Peary was engaged in his first North Pole expedition. Moreover, at the end of that magical summer the fun had come to an end when Merrymeeting Park closed its season for the very last time.

The overwhelming popularity of moving picture shows were gaining in America, and Brunswick citizens had become more interested in going to the new "flickers" than to the grand old parks. Additionally, the Cadillac Brothers were producing a "model A" automobile that in 1906 could be purchased for the reasonable price of just $750.00.

The spreading popularity of these affordable horseless-carriages saw the "new pastime of motoring become popular in Brunswick" and thus, offered citizens and tourists more opportunities to go where trains and streetcars did not. Parents were able to pack up their families and head to places many had never been before and enjoy new locations, new attractions, and the vast and wondrous sights of Maine and New England.

Merrymeeting Park had lasted for nine years, but failed to make a profit and low turnout forced the park's owners to close it doors, end "the fine table service", and sell off its immense zoo inhabitants.

By 1915 hardly any bits and pieces of Brunswick's "Golden Age" at Merrymeeting Park had remained. The attractions and facilities of the park had been dismantled, the man-made ponds and brook-fed lagoons were drained, and the grand entrance at the edge of Bath Road had been hauled away.

Today, route one passes through the land that once hosted tens of thousands of citizens from of Maine, and the tourists from away. The Town's blacktop paved walking path now winds over the hill where the casino once sat, and local businesses covet the areas where trolleys, horseless carriages, and ox drawn carts, once delivered throngs of summertime crowds.