The following list includes notable people who were born or have lived in Bangor, Maine.

Architects and engineers

Charles G. Bryant (1803–1858), Maine's first architect, lived and practiced in Bangor in the 1830s and designed Mount Hope Cemetery, the second garden cemetery in the U.S.; moved to Texas (Galveston) and became the first architect in that state, where, joining the Texas Rangers, he was eventually killed and scalped by Apache IndiansJames H. Mundy and Earle G. Shettleworth, The Flight of the Grand Eagle: Charles G. Bryant, Architect and Adventurer (Augusta: Maine Historic Preservation Commission, 1977). Francis Clergue, born in neighboring Brewer; lawyer; oversaw one of the most ambitious engineering projects in North America, the development of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Ontario as a major hydropower and industrial center in the 1890s–1900s; previously organized the Bangor Street Railway (the first electric railway in Maine) and the Bangor Waterworks, and had tried and failed to build a railroad across Persia and a waterworks in its capital, TehranFrancis Hector Clergue: The Personality Retrieved June 29, 2008. C. Parker Crowell, architect Benjamin S. Deane, architect Charles Davis Jameson, engineer who taught at MIT; went to China and became chief consulting engineer and architect to the Imperial Chinese Government (1895–1918); planned important hydraulics projects and witnessed the Boxer Rebellion Edward Austin Kent (1854–1912), leading architect in Buffalo, New York; three-time president of the American Institute of Architects; died aboard the RMS TitanicEdward Austin Kent in Buffalo New York , by Bill Parke. Accessed Feb. 5, 2008. Wilfred E. Mansur, architectDeborah Thompson, Bangor, Maine, 1769–1914: An Architectural History (Orono: University of Maine Press, 1988). George W. Orff, architect Calvin Ryder, architect

Artists

Echo Eggebrecht, painter from New York, also a Bangor native Jeremiah Pearson Hardy (1800–1887), portrait painter; apprenticed under Samuel Morse; lived and worked in Bangor for most of his career, sustained largely by the patronage of lumber barons;Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Artists and Peter Falk, Who was Who in American Art. his children Anna Eliza Hardy and Francis Willard Hardy, and sister Mary Ann Hardy, were also part of a 19th-century circle of Bangor paintersDiane Vastne and Pauline Kaiser, eds., The Hardy Connection: Bangor Women Artists, 1830–1960 (Bangor: Bangor Historical Society, 1992). Walter Franklin Lansil, studied first under Hardy, then at the Académie Julian in Paris; established a studio in Boston and became a celebrated landscape and marine artist Waldo Peirce, painter and bohemian; confidante of Ernest Hemingway; from a prominent Bangor family Helena Wood Smith (1865–1914), member of the artists' colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, was murdered there by her lover, Japanese photographer George Kodani; sister of novelist Ruel Perley Smith"Artist Reported Murdered was a Former Bangor Girl", Lewiston Daily Sun, Aug. 24, 1914. Frederic Porter Vinton (1846–1911), left Bangor at age 14 for Boston, where he became its most sought-after portrait painter—producing over 300 canvases; one of the original members of the Boston School; studied at the Royal Academy of Munich and with Leon Bonnat in Paris, as well as with William Morris Hunt

Athletes

Frank Barbour, born in Bangor, head coach of the University of Michigan team, the Michigan Wolverines (1890s), after playing as quarterback of the national champion Yale University team of 1891 Brian Butterfield, Boston Red Sox third base coach, born in Bangor Norman Cahners, of Bangor, qualified for the 1936 Olympic Team trials in track & field, but boycotted the event with Harvard track teammate Milton Green, because the games were to take place in Nazi Germany (Cahners and Green were Jewish); member of the Harvard Varsity Athletic Club Hall of Fame; built one of the largest publishing empires in AmericaNew York Times obituary of Norman L. Cahners, March 18, 1986. Adam Craig, cross-country biking champion, born in Bangor and grew up in nearby Corinth, Maine, member of the U.S. Biking Team at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Michael Daley, local boxer, Lightweight Boxing Champion of New England Marcus Davis, professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter; he and his Team Irish currently call Bangor their home Jon DiSalvatore, former National Hockey League player Mary Freeman, Bangor-born swimmer; competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland; sister-in-law of Grace Kelly Al Harris (born 1956), former National Football League player of the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles, from Bangor Emily Kagan (born 1981), mixed martial artist Matt Kinney, Major League Baseball player of the Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals and now Japan's Seibu Lions Jack Leggett, Clemson University baseball coach Kevin Mahaney, of Bangor, won a silver medal in sailing at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, reached the finals of the America's Cup trials with his Bangor-based PACT-95 teamNew York Times, Jan. 8, 1995, Section 8, p. 6; ibid, Aug. 21, 1994, Section 8, p. 4. Chick Maynard, baseball shortstop Jack McAuliffe, world lightweight boxing champion in the 1880s–1890s, known as the "Napoleon of the ring", learned to fight growing up as a child in a tough Bangor neighborhood, retired with an unbeaten record Riley Masters, mid-distance runner Bobby Messenger, former Major League Baseball player (1901–1964) of the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Browns Matthew Mulligan, of the New England Patriots, born in Bangor Pat O'Connell (1861–1943), of the Baltimore Orioles Harry Orman Robinson, head coach of the University of Texas football team, the Texas Longhorns (1890s), and before that the University of Missouri team, the Missouri Tigers Jack Sharrott (1869–1927), of the New York Giants and Philadelphia Phillies Matt Stairs, Philadelphia Phillies hitter (native of New Brunswick, Canada) Jeff Turner, former National Basketball Association player of the New Jersey Nets and Orlando Magic; born in Bangor; won a gold medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games as a member of the U.S. Basketball Team

Authors

Mabel Fuller Blodgett, wrote the novel At the Queen's Mercy when she was 19 years oldObit of Mabel Blodgett, Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle, June 8, 1959, p. 19. Laura Curtis Bullard, whose family started a successful patent medicine business in Bangor in the 1830s, eventually moved to Brooklyn and became a proto-feminist novelist and editor. She was a patron and confidante of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and took over editorship of their newspaper The Revolution when it experienced financial difficulties Frederick H. Costello (1851–1921), nationally successful writer of adventure novels for young adults; for 30 years held a day job as local (Bangor) manager of the R.G. Dunn credit reporting company Owen Davis (1874–1956), Pulitzer Prize winning playwright; lived in Bangor until he was 15; his prize-winning play Icebound (1923) is set in neighboring Veazie; wrote between 200 and 300 plays, as well as radio and film scripts, and two autobiographies; inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters; president of the Author's League of America and the American Dramatist's GuildMaine Writer's Index, Owen Davis, retrieved 14 January 2008. Henry Payson Dowst (1872–1921), Bangor-born; novelist and short-story writer; a number of his stories were made into silent films, including The Dancin' Fool (1920); spent his later life in a New York advertising agency, but was buried in Bangor David Fiske (1954–2023), born in Bangor, author and local historian Katya Alpert Gilden (1919–1991), of Bangor, co-authored with her husband Bert Gilden the best-selling 1965 novel Hurry Sundown, which became an Otto Preminger film in 1967 Clarine Coffin Grenfell (1910–2004), poet and author, born and raised in Bangor Frederic Henry Hedge, Transcendentalist minister of the Congregational Church in Bangor in the 1830s; his circle, which included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, met as "Hedge's Club" or the Transcendental Club whenever Hedge returned to his native Cambridge, MassachusettsJoel Myerson, "A Calendar of Transcendental Club Meetings" American Literature 44:2 (May 1972). Blanche Willis Howard, best-selling late 19th-century novelist; born and raised in Bangor; eventually moved to Stuttgart, Germany, and married the court physician to King Charles I of Württemberg, thus becoming the Baroness von Teuffel Stephen King, horror author; his family donates a substantial amount of money to local libraries and hospitals; funded a local baseball stadium and aquatic center; created fictional town, Derry, Maine, which shares many points of correspondence with Bangor; features Bangor in many of his stories, such as The Langoliers and Storm of the Century; owned the radio stations WKIT, WZON, and WZLO until 2025 Helen Maud Merrill (pen name, Samantha Spriggins; 1865–1943), litterateur and poet Hayford Peirce, Bangor native, science-fiction writer, nephew of Waldo Peirce Alexis A. Gilliland, sci-fi author and cartoonist Mameve Medwed, novelist Don J. Snyder, novelist Christina Baker Kline, novelist Christopher Willard, novelist David Baker, poet Susan Lubner, children's book author Bruce McMillan, children's book author Eugene T. Sawyer, the "prince of dime novelists", was born and raised in Bangor. In a 1902 interview, he claimed to have authored 75 examples of that genre, mostly for the Nick Carter series, once producing a 60,000 word novel in two days. His major innovation was to "begin the plot with the first word", i.e. "We will have the money, or she shall die!"Edmund Pearson, Dime Novels: Or, Following an Old Trail in Popular Literature (Boston: Little Brown, 1929); New York Times, Aug. 23, 1902, BR8, "The Spiritual Massage" and ibid, "Books and Men", July 26, 1902, p. BR12 (summarizes extensive interview with Sawyer published in The Bookman, v. 15, no. 6, Aug. 1902); Eugene T. Sawyer, History of Santa Clara County, California (Historic Record Co., 1922), p. 372. Ruel Perley Smith (1869–1937), born in Bangor, author of the Rival Campers series of boys' books in the early 20th century; night and Sunday editor of the New York World newspaperNew York Times obit, July 31, 1937, p. 15. Tim Sullivan, science fiction author, born and raised in Bangor George Savary Wasson, painter and author of four novels, lived and worked in Bangor in the early 20th century Christine Goutiere Weston (1904–1989), author of ten novels, more than thirty short stories, and two non-fiction books (about Ceylon and Afghanistan), born in India and lived the latter part of her life in BangorNew York Times, May 6, 1989.

Civil servants

William Hammatt Davis, of Bangor; brother of playwright Owen Davis; chairman of the War Labor Board under Franklin Roosevelt, where his job was keeping industrial peace between management and labor; appointed U.S. economic stabilizer at the end of the war; helped draft the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) of 1935, which gave labor unions the right to organize Jay Stone, of Bangor; chief clerk of the War Department in the 1920s Artemus E. Weatherbee (died 1995), of Bangor; assistant secretary of the treasury (1959–1970) and thereafter U.S. director of the Asian Development Bank with the rank of ambassador

Clergymen and missionaries