In this circa-1970 photo, Jordan Marsh is at the center, surrounded by parking lots. The Maine Mall had not yet been built and the former Dwyer farm property is shown in the foreground, between the Payne Road (Maine Mall Road) and the Maine Turnpike. Contributed / South Portland Historical Society, Bernal B. Allen Collection

We continue this week with the story of Charles F. Dwyer, who came from Rockland, Massachusetts, to Maine around 1935. He began a trash collection business at the South Portland shipyards during World War II and then operated the pig farm (part of his larger trash collection and recycling business) in the area which was later developed into the Maine Mall.

If you lived in South Portland around the time that the Maine Mall opened in 1971, you would have heard the story about the former farm. While the juxtaposition of a gleaming, modernized shopping center vs. a dirty, smelly pig farm was a catchy marketing ploy, it’s not a very accurate statement. The Maine Mall itself is built on what was formerly swampy land that had limited to no prior development on it. The site of the pig farm was across the street, on land that is covered today by the two hotel towers of DoubleTree by Hilton, down to Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen on the corner of Running Hill Road.

No one could have imagined what was coming to western South Portland when Charlie Dwyer bought two lots from the city of South Portland in November 1947, where he would locate his trash disposal business. The old Payne Road had just been moved to make way for the construction of the Kittery-to-Portland section of the Maine Turnpike (opened in December 1947) when Dwyer purchased the land that ran 705 feet along the new Payne Road (now called Maine Mall Road) on the corner of Running Hill Road. With the highway traffic whizzing by on one side and the swamp land on the other, it seemed the perfect site for his operation. From the late 1940s until the mid-1960s, Dwyer maintained his pig farm and trash operation on the site.

What has been abbreviated by history to simply a “pig farm” was also used as a large trash processing facility. His fleet of trucks would head out to residential homes, restaurants and other businesses to gather trash and food waste and bring it back to the Payne Road site for processing. The locations where they picked up changed over the years, but included Redbank and other areas in South Portland and Portland, as well as Old Orchard Beach. Some of the businesses where he picked up included Jordan’s Meats, B.D. Stearns, and H.P. Hood. His business would take any trash, including garbage (food waste), household trash, and even large steel beams and bricks.

He kept about 100 pigs in a fenced-in area that covered about a third of the site. This area also included a roughly 30-by-50-foot barn and a couple of outbuildings that could be used as shelters for pigs. Food waste was used to feed the pigs. Trash was sorted and recycled whenever possible. The large barn could be used to store a tractor and a few trucks. There was a press in the barn that was used to bale up paper. Metal and glass could be separated and sold, as well. Anything that could possibly be sold or reused was separated out and only the remainder of material was ultimately trash and would be burned on the premises.

While Dwyer managed the business end, he hired employees to drive the trucks and run the day-to-day operation of the pig farm and trash disposal site. His righthand man for most of those years was Fred Willette, who had previously worked as a welder in the shipyard. He did everything in Charlie Dwyer’s business, from trash pickups to running the farm. In the farm operation, they also raised a couple of sulky horses, and they hayed fields in Redbank, Clark’s Pond and near Western Avenue by the airport.

Ever the entrepreneur, Charlie Dwyer recycled some housing units, as well. In 1954 when Broadview Park (the old wartime housing complex along Alfred Street in South Portland) was being discontinued and dismantled, he purchased 18 of the buildings, consisting of 99 dwelling units, from the Federal Housing Authority. He cut many of the buildings into single dwellings and had them moved and sold. He also took some of those units and moved them to East Grand Avenue, Pine Point, where he established and operated the tourist lodging business known as Dwyer’s Lodge.

The Maine Mall, just after its opening in 1971. The former Dwyer farm property is the grassy area across the street from the Maine Mall. Contributed / South Portland Historical Society, Bernal B. Allen Collection

While there had previously been only occasional complaints with Dwyer’s business between the swampy land and the highway, that would not be the case when City Manager Bernal Allen began to eye the area as a potential site for development. Starting in 1965, Allen and the City Council began calling Dwyer’s operation a “nuisance” and demanded that the site be cleaned up. Dwyer hired an attorney to represent him, and the attorney was quoted as indicating the problem was with “progress catching up with Mr. Dwyer.”

In the summer of 1965, the large barn was destroyed by fire. This marked the end of most of his operation along Payne Road. In 1967, when South Portland was chosen to become the site of a major shopping center, the largest in the state, there was no way that Dwyer’s property was going to coexist with it. The city moved ahead with its attempt to eliminate the operation, but Dwyer ended the fight by selling his property to William D. Lane in December 1967. Lane was a Realtor in Newton, Massachusetts, who headed up the group of developers who created the Maine Mall and the surrounding area.

Charles Dwyer died in 1975 and is buried with his wife Mattie at Calvary Cemetery in South Portland.

South Portland Historical Society offers a free Online Museum with nearly 17,000 images available for viewing with a keyword search. You can find it at sphistory.pastperfectonline.com and, if you appreciate what we do, feel free to make a donation by using the donation button on the home page. If you have photographs or other information to share about South Portland’s past, we hope you will reach out to us. South Portland Historical Society can be reached at 207-767-7299, by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.

Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is the executive director of the South Portland Historical Society.