Bonney Park

Bonney Park. . , Welcome to Bonney Park , Located in the heart of downtown Auburn, Bonney Park was named in remembrance of fallen Police Officer Rodney "Rocky" Bonney. Bonney Park features playground equipment and great views of the Androscoggin River. Bonney Park is part of the Auburn Riverwalk and is one of 1600 rails-trails supported by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that is working to create a nationwide network of trails from former rail lines and connecting corridors., Officer Rodney (Rocky) Bonney died in the line of duty on April 6, 1981., Officer Bonney drowned while trying to save a teenage boy who had fallen into the icy Androscoggin River while riding his bicycle along the railroad trestle/foot bridge. Officer Bonney was the first officer to arrive at the scene and immediately stripped out of his jacket and service belt. He dove into the river and was able to make it to the boy., The boy began to struggle with Officer Bonney out of fear. A second officer - Officer John Perrino arrived at the scene and also entered the water. Realizing that he could not continue, Officer Bonney pushed the boy towards Perrino. Perrino grabbed the boy as Officer Bonney fell below the surface. The boy continued to struggle and also fell below the surface after causing Perrino to lose his grip. Officer Perrino managed to get ashore and was pulled from the water., Officer Bonney's body was not located until the following afternoon. The park was later named "Bonney Park" in Rocky's memory., Grand Trunk Railroad , In 1873, the Grand Trunk Railroad operating from Montreal to Portland was officially connected to Lewiston, through Auburn, when the municipally owned Lewiston and Auburn Rail Road Company built a 5 mile connecting line from Danville Junction to Lewiston's Lincoln Street. The trail you are standing on are what remain of this railway. It brought thousands of immigrants to start a new life in Auburn and Lewiston and also allowed them to visit families and friends left behind. This railway was essential to Auburn/Lewiston's development as a major industrial center in the late 19th century and was the main route travelled by French Canadian immigrants into Maine (Douglass Hodgkins: 2011)., Norway Savings Bank Arena , ⮊ Built in 2013, Norway Savings Bank Arena is Maine's first and only dual-surface ice arena. , ⮊ Auburn's Norway Savings Bank Arena is visited by over 400,000 people every year. Our guests travel from all over New England and Canada to utilize our state-of-the-art ice facility. , ⮊ Rink 1 has a capacity of over 1,200 (810 seated, 400 standing). Rink 2 has a capacity of nearly 1,000 (450 seated and 500 standing). , ⮊ Norway Savings Bank Arena: ,

■ Offers year-round hockey camps and training , ■ Hosts 45-50 high school hockey games every year , ■ Hosts the senior class "A" and "B" all-star games - all proceeds benefitting the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital located in Portland, Maine , ■ Hosts multiple yearly hockey tournaments and hosts the UMaine Lady Black Bears Hockey Program , ■ Home to the Central Maine Community College Mustang Hockey Program (Division III ACHA)

, Prehistoric Androscoggin , The Amarascoggins , The earliest evidence of people living in this area comes from the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport, where archaeologists uncovered a 10,200 year old campfire. These early people, called Paleoindians, lived in small family groups and hunted large animals with stone tipped spears. By about 1,000 years ago, the Native People living here had learned to grow corn. When Europeans arrived in the early 1600's, a tribe of Abenakis known as the Amarascoggins claimed the area as home. They hunted in the nearby forests, grew corn, beans, and squash, and fished the Androscoggin River., The River's Bounty , The river's supply of fish was very important to the indigenous people who lived here. Atlantic salmon, sturgeon, brook trout, alewives, and shad all called the river home. Salmon are anadromous, which means they live in the ocean but swim up-river to spawn. Migrating salmon would get stuck at the bottom of the Great Falls, making it an excellent spot to cast a net or use a special spear-fishing tool called a leister. Anything that wasn't eaten right away was smoked and dried to preserve it for later., Ancient Names , Due to the language barrier between the early Europeans and the Native People of Amarascoggin, writings from early encounters that noted important places or names were often confused or misspelled. In fact, early settlers who wrote the original name "Androscoggin," spelled it 60 different ways! In 1793, an Amarascoggin man named Pere Pole (Pierre Paul Coviagme) was asked to testify and set the record straight. He identified the Great Falls and the surrounding area as Amitgonpontook, which divided the river into two sections. The river above the falls was the Ammoscocongon, and the river below the falls was the Pejepscook. Above, you can see Pere Pole's personal signature: a bull moose., Amitgonpontook , The Native Peoples did establish the Amitgonpontook Village around the Great Falls largely due to the many natural resources found there. Many species of migrating fish would collect at the base of the falls making it an ideal location to fish, and the fertile soils of the low lying floodplains supported crops and other native plants used for foraging. The fastest way to travel then was by boat and Amitgonpontook offered easy access to these water highways. However, to get past the Great Falls safely, people either had to get out and carry their boats down a path called a portage or go around as shown in the map below., "The Place for Drying Fish" , Laurel Avenue in New Auburn, also known as Laurel Hill, was once the village of Amitgonpontook. The name, according to historians could have a number of meanings which include "a place for curing and drying fish," and "a place of red clay," as the Native People were known to name locations after the resources found there. from the hill's elevated position, the Amarascoggin people had an excellent view of the intersection of the Little and Greater Androscoggin Rivers., Church's Raid , During King William's War in September of 1690, English Major Benjamin Church led 200 English soldiers and 100 of their native allies in an attack on the fort at Amitgonpontook. Most of the local warriors were off fighting on the coast, so the fort had mostly women and children inside. Church claims he found English captives here, so he destroyed all of the corn, burned the fort to the ground, and took some captives. He then killed everyone else except for two old women and a few men who managed to escape through the caves that were behind the Great Falls. While no one can say exactly what happened here, this story is a tragic reminder of the human costs of war., River Restoration , The great successes of the booming textile mill industry resulted in the unfortunate degradation of the water quality for the Androscoggin River, and by the 1960's it had been ranked one of the ten most polluted rivers in the nation., In the 1960's Edmund Muskie, who served as a Maine governor, U.S. senator and U.S. secretary of state, and was born in Rumsford and raised yards from the Androscoggin River, became inspired by the polluted river. Muskie's devotion to tackling environmental problems, and his personal ties to the Androscoggin River resulted in the landmark Clean Water Act of 1972 which established programs and set standards for pollutant discharges into the waters of the United States., River restoration programs have been a great success. Fish and other wildlife populations have returned, and people are enjoying the Androscoggin River once again!, Ingersoll Arena was re-constructed into its current form in 1994 by the City of Auburn, local businesses, civic organizations, individual contributions and lots of voluntary labor. Formerly named the Pettengill Arena, the facility was renamed in 1999 in honor of Norris E. Ingersoll in acknowledgment of his more than three decades of service to the City of Auburn as the parks and Recreation Department Director. Built upon the achievements of Ingersoll Arena, recent investments by the City and community have produced a new ice arena facility; the Norway Saving Bank Arena which created a new opportunity for Ingersoll Arena to enter a new chapter with a repurposed use as an indoor turf facility.River Ecology , A Web of Life , What you see here is only a small sample of many kinds of creatures that once lived in and around the Androscoggin. Many of them still do, but others are either gone or surviving in very small numbers. Part of the reason for this is the pollution from various industries that used to turn the river into a smelly, foamy mess. Some chemicals kill animals directly, while others are food for algae. The algae grow out of control and, when the food's gone, they die. As they decompose, they use up oxygen, leaving little for the fish to breathe., Path to Recovery , The Androscoggin has made tremendous strides in recent years, and the quality of the water is improving. While the closing of paper mills and other industries is an economic tragedy, the silver lining of this cloud is that fewer chemicals find their way to the river. With less pollution, fish can literally breathe easier. However, levels of dioxin and other toxic chemicals that build up in the fat of fish are still too high for the fish to be eaten regularly. People should eat more than 6 - 12 fish meals per year from the Androscoggin. Pregnant women and small children should avoid them entirely. However, if we continue to help the Androscoggin recover, we can restore and protect this valuable resource for future generations.