Criterion A: Industry
Criterion C: Architecture
Period of Significance: 1907-1941
National Level of Significance
The McCurdy Smokehouse is significant at the national level under Criterion A (Industry) for its association with the historically significant fishing industry in the Downeast region of Maine, and as the last surviving American Complex representing the traditional, vernacular method of smoking herring for preservation. In addition, the McCurdy Smokehouse is significant at the national level under Criterion C (architecture) as one of two known examples in the nation of this vernacular building type, one that likewise is a continuation of a building form that has been used for centuries for the smoking of fish. The McCurdy Smokehouse closed in May 1991 as a result of an inability to comply with new regulations from the Food and Drug Administration, and in 1993 the Maine Historic Preservation Commission prepared a successful National Register of Historic Places nomination for the complex. In this earlier nomination, the McCurdy Smokehouse complex was recommended for listing at the state level of significance. In the succeeding three decades, however, both new evidence and a new awareness of what the McCurdy Smokehouse represents regarding the history of the United States, its links to the earliest settlement of the nation, and the culture of the Downeast portion of the state, have led to the conviction that this smokehouse complex has significance that goes beyond the State of Maine. More than simply one industry among many, the McCurdy Smokehouse is the last remaining complex that maintained the traditional process of smoking herring, using a specific traditional form of building, that emerged from medieval Europe where smoked herring was an important component of international trade, and that became part of a way of life in this distinct and remote coastal region of Maine. Maine came into being as an English colony and later a part of the United States on the basis of its relation to the Atlantic Ocean and the rivers that drain into it. Although the State of Maine now extends hundreds of miles north of the coast into a great forested wilderness with seemingly limitless amounts of timber, its origins and much of its identity are maritime, with a significant part of its economy and culture tied to fishing and seafood processing, whether commercially or recreationally. Seafood products from the coast of Maine were enjoyed on a regional basis from the area's earliest European settlement. For decades following the advent of mass production and transportation, from the late nineteenth and into the twentieth century, seafood products from Maine have been staples on American tables, with the proliferation of canned sardines overtaking smoked herring in popularity only in the twentieth century. Moreover, the eastern coastal region of Maine, traditionally referred to as "Downeast," has become a distinct component of American culture and folklore, as recognized by the establishment of the Downeast Maine National Heritage Area (NHA) in early 2023, encompassing Hancock and Washington Counties. The traditional practice of smoking herring on the Maine coast, for both preservation and flavor, was the continuation of food production methods reaching back centuries and an important component of the states economy into the twentieth century, with international connections ranging from Canadian fishermen to markets in Boston, New York, and points south and west. Smokehouses nearly identical in form to what survives as part of the McCurdy Smokehouse complex once dotted the Maine coast from Eastport and Lubec to Kittery, all of which drew upon what had been standardized types along the North Atlantic coast from Scotland and England to northern Europe and the Baltic Sea. Internationally, the practice of traditionally smoked fish has gained the recognition that testifies to its historical significance; in 1995, Canada recognized the smoked herring complex at Seal Cove on Grand Manan Island as a National Historic Site of Canada as representing the enduring culture of an important smoked herring fishery, and in 2009 the European Union awarded the status of Protected Geographical Indication for the traditionally smoked fish of Grimsby, England, one of only four similar designations for seafood. The McCurdy Smokehouse complex was the last traditional smoked herring facility in the nation when it closed in 1991, ending nearly three centuries of the process along the Maine coast and its intimate connection to the Downeast Maine culture.