BACKSPACE: Beloved ice cream parlor in 1930s Castine

Frank and Lowena Devereux ran the parlor on the North Castine-Penobscot line. Photo courtesy of the Penobscot Marine Museum.

April 27, 2026

In the 1930s Castine was a busy town with four grocery stores, hardware and drug stores, dry goods and shoe stores, an undertaker, a hospital, and the Eastern State Normal School, which trained teachers. In the days before Maine Maritime Academy, the Castine Sardine Factory and boatyards dominated the waterfront.  There were several hotels, including the Castine House, Pentagoet, and Shetola House, but only one restaurant. “People didn't eat out much,” a woman who was a child in Castine in the 1930s recalled.

Local families did enjoy outings to the ice cream parlor run by Frank and Lowena Devereux on the North Castine-Penobscot line, however, and summer folk enjoyed eating out at the Devereux' lobster pound. Frank Devereux developed a baseball diamond behind the building, which drew large crowds on Sunday. The Devereux family also owned cottages and a picnic area on the shore, from which there was a lovely view across the Bay to Fort Point. According to a 1937 guidebook, the Old Devereux House across from the lobster pound, built in 1788, was a place of interest.

–Written by Liz Fitzsimmons

“BACKSPACE” is a partnership between the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport and The Rising Tide that showcases the unique coastal and maritime history of our towns in and around the Blue Hill Peninsula. For more information about the Penobscot Marine Museum, please visit their website.