
Use the LEFT / RIGHT keys to navigate the Darkroom
Use the UP key to show captions
Use the DOWN key to hide captions
Use the ESC key to close Darkroom
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.