Holman Day House

Perhaps one of Auburn's most famous citizens, Holman Day was a writer and humorist that captured the spirit of Maine residence in the early 1900's. His Down East poems were often recited a Grange meetings and local colleges and never went out of popularity. He wrote twenty five novels, three hundred short stories, and several plays. He received wide recognition as a newspaper editor, reporter, film director and radio actor. Day grew up in Vassalboro and after graduating from Colby College in 1887 and he published papers in Dexter and Bangor before settling in Auburn in the late 1890's, while working for the Lewiston Evening Journal. His Victorian home at the corner of Goff and Court Streets has a circular tower and fancy gingerbread trim that sets it part from its inner city neighborhood. To this day it remains a unique Auburn property. After Day retired from the newspaper business he launched his fiction career and had much of his work published in the Saturday Evening Post. His book “King Spruce” was one of the first novels to depict the dramatic lives of Maine's river drivers and lumber barons and was later made into a movie staring Dorothy Gish and Leon Erroll. Day also produced the first motion picture ever made in Maine called the “Maine Log” with an all Maine cast.. Day eventually left Auburn and moved to California where where he specialized as a “Down East Captain” in a San Francisco radio program. He passed away in 1935 but his home remains as a historical landmark.