Cars on Interstate 295 pass the landmark B&M Baked Beans factory in Portland, which will close after almost 100 years to be replaced by a technology campus anchored by the Roux Institute.
Kyle Noyes, with Sign One of Falmouth, wipes down a new B&M Baked Beans sign before it gets lifted into place at the top of the bean factory in Portland in 2010.
Production supervisor Dave Rickett, a 45-year employee at B&M, cradles dry pea beans in his hands. The beans come from Michigan and Manitoba, Canada, and arrive by truck in 2,000-pound bags. The beans used to arrive by train, but in spring 2014 the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad discontinued freight service between the Auburn and B&M, the railway's southern terminus.
Steam rises from a pot as David Lamontagne pours cooked beans into a chute and down to the canning line.
B&M began on Franklin Street in Portland in 1867, when George Burnham opened a food cannery. Soon after, he was joined by Charles Morrill to form the Burnham & Morrill Co.. In 1913, the operation moved to the shore of Casco Bay in East Deering.
Cans of B&M beans make their way down the production line at the brand's Portland factory in 2017.
Zoran Krismanovitch feeds empty cans into a conveyor where they are washed just before filling and sealing.
Eric Bay pushes an empty, 200-pound steel crate along a rail system to be refilled at the canning line.
A forklift driver delivers pallets of packaged beans to B&M's 40,000-square-foot warehouse.
B&M employee Kyle Corbeil uses a hoist to deliver a steel crate with more than 100 cans of beans to a pressure cooker in 2017.
Forklift operator Brent Walker prepares to load a stack of empty cans into a conveyor system in April 2017.
Workers dangling from a crane use machinery to remove B&M's iconic smokestack brick by brick on Aug. 6.
The landmark B&M beans factory in Portland will close after almost 100 years to be replaced by a technology campus anchored by the Roux Institute. Developers intend to create an education, research and technology development hub with housing, a hotel and eateries in the space, as well as public waterfront access.
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