Bob Krist Documentary Celebrates Route One's 100 Years on Maine Public TV

Bob Krist, a Boothbay Harbor-based National Geographic photographer turned documentary filmmaker, drove every mile of Maine's Route 1 in segments to produce "100 Years of Route One: A Centennial Road Trip" for Maine Public TV, a film that covers the midcoast stretch through Bath and Brunswick as part of a journey spanning 526 miles from Kittery to Fort Kent.

The documentary debuted Thursday, March 26 at 9 p.m. on Maine Public TV, with repeat airings through March 29. It is now available to stream through Maine Public's online catalog and through PBS.

Route 1 was officially designated in 1926 as part of the country's new numbered highway system, and Krist treats the centennial as occasion to survey what a hundred years of road culture produced along the coast. For Sagadahoc County viewers, the midcoast chapter runs through familiar ground. Wiscasset, eight miles north of Bath on Route 1, appears through Andy Rogers of Jolie Rogers Raw Bar, one of several food producers and small-business owners Krist filmed to illustrate how the road shaped a regional economy. Smokey McKeen of Pemaquid Oyster Company also features in the film, as does Autumn Mowry, who kept Ellsworth's last remaining candlepin lanes from going dark.

Krist also filmed L.L. Bean's famed Bootmobile in Freeport, visited the Ogunquit Playhouse, and captured a colorfully dilapidated gas station in Waite, north of Calais, and an old barn in East Orland still plastered with vintage signs for Coke, Texaco and Lite Beer for Miller. Each stop reflects the same thesis: that the roadside curiosities drivers now pass without a glance were deliberate inventions of the automobile age, conjured for travelers in 1926 and rebuilt, in many cases, ever since.

Explaining his stop at the Ogunquit Playhouse, Krist said, "I wanted to do something about summer stock; it existed because roads were made good enough for actors to get out of the cities and drive to do theater in all these summer places."

The film is scheduled to air on PBS stations and is part of the Maine Public Film Series. Anyone wanting to catch up after the broadcast run can find it in Maine Public's streaming catalog and through PBS's national platform. Krist, who splits his time between Boothbay Harbor and a winter home in Mexico, made his name spending decades on assignment for National Geographic before turning his lens on the coast he now calls home, and the Route 1 centennial gave him 526 miles of material to work with.