Braden Theatre…1950-2008 ...

In 1970 the theater was sold to James Bernard and sons, Reginald and Richard. A year later James sold his portion to son, Mike, following his (Mike’s) discharge from the Army. Bernard then converted the one-screen hall to a three-screen. In April of 1982, Mike acquired sole ownership of the theater and operated it until January of 1994 when the final curtain closed because of increased competition from the new 8-cinema theater at the Aroostook Centre Mall. Bernard would continue to operate the Caribou Cinema. The theater was placed on the market for sale and finally sold 10 years later, but was never operated as a movie hall during the first few years of new ownership. It wouldn’t be until the summer of 2007 that still another owner and operator (the Dow family) would purchase the theater with movies in mind. Nine months later on March 1, 2008, the Braden opened its doors once more, much to the excitement of the community.

To conclude our trip down Braden memory lane, a few little tidbits might be interesting. Thanks to John Hone’s rapping at my memory door, we have these few factoids. Oh, what the heck, let’s coin a word….how about “histoid” (a history factoid). Okay, that done in good fashion, let’s see what these histoids are.

~Sometime in the 1920’s when John R. Braden was the talk of the town, the Presque Isle House (Northeastland Hotel) hosted a banquet for the famous horse. We have understood through the years that a silver cup had been designed for the occasion. Braden was then led through the front door into the banquet room and allowed to drink from the cup. I can well imagine the crowd went wild. Remember…the Hotel of yesteryear isn’t the same Hotel of today; a new one was erected on the same site in 1932.

~Before Claude Taylor (self-styled Presque Isle historian for the Star-Herald for many years) coined the name “Wildcats” for the P.I. High School basketball team in 1932, the locals referred to the team as the Blue and White team and/or the Bradentown team, obviously named after JRB.

~Back 80 years or so, maybe fewer, an Anton Nichols owned and operated a small store down on North Main St almost across from Church St. He not only sold groceries, but also had learned the trade of making cigars. I have suspected for a number of years that he studied under the watchful eye of U.J. Hedrich who made cigars in Presque Isle for many years. One of those Hedrich cigars was called the John R. Braden cigar. I reckon when Hedrich decided to quit the cigar business, Nichols either purchased the cigar-making equipment or was given same. Nichols and his family lived on Hall St. Wouldn’t it be something else to find a fully-wrapped JRB cigar in amongst a box of junk one would find at a local auction or in Grandma’s attic?

So, now I leave the history of the Braden Theatre. I have no idea what my next piece of local history will be, but you can bet your last gallon of fuel oil that thunder will strike and I’ll be in your face once more with another slice of our long-forgotten past.

Stay tuned to this paper for more local stuff whenever the mood hits. Comments should be directed to the letters to the editor section of the Star-Herald. You may reach me anytime at rgraves001@maine.rr.com. A response is guaranteed……..