This week’s entry: Erwin Kreuz
What it’s about: The tourist who mistook Bangor, Maine for San Francisco, becoming a local folk hero in the process.
Biggest controversy: No real controversy here, just a big misunderstanding. Erwin Kreuz was a 50-year-old German brewery worker who spoke no English and had only taken one flight in his life before he booked a trip to San Francisco in 1977. When the flight made a refueling stop in Bangor, a flight attendant whose shift was ending and wouldn’t continue on for the next leg of the flight, bid him to enjoy his stay in San Francisco. Kreuz took that to mean the plane had landed in the Golden City and got off the plane. He got into a taxi, asked the driver for “sleep,” and was taken to the Bangor House hotel, not realizing until the morning he was in the wrong place.
Strangest fact: Bangor’s two Chinese restaurants were apparently a convincing enough replacement for San Francisco’s Chinatown. Kreuz wandered Bangor looking for the Golden Gate Bridge and other landmarks, still assuming he was in California and had merely ended up in the suburbs and merely had to make his way downtown. When he stumbled upon one of Bangor’s Chinese restaurants, this only confirmed he was getting close, as he knew Chinatown was an important neighborhood in San Franscico.
Thing we were happiest to learn: Bangor rallied around the lost tourist. It didn’t really sink in that Kreuz had made a mistake when his hotel wouldn’t let him continue on for another night—it was completely booked for University of Maine parents weekend. He hailed another taxi and asked to go to San Francisco, and the cabbie managed to convey that he was on the wrong side of the country. Undaunted, Kreuz went to a bar, asking for directions to San Fran; someone overheard him and called his friends who spoke German. They also owned a German restaurant in nearby Old Town, where they took Kreuz, explained the situation, and promised to help him.
Kreuz became a local celebrity. He was given the key to the city, was the guest of honor at Oktoberfest, met the governor and state secretary of state, was made an honorary member of the Penobscot tribe, and gifted an acre of land in northern Maine. He was taken on all manner of local sightseeing trips, and celebrated his 50th birthday at the German restaurant whose owners had helped him. At his own request, he also visited McDonald’s and took a turn flipping hamburgers. His story went nationwide, getting told in Time, the Associated Press, the CBS Evening News, and the Today show. When the San Francisco Examiner picked up the story, the paper offered to fly Kreuz to the West Coast for the remainder of his trip. He was given the key to that city as well, a banquet was thrown in the real Chinatown, and he got to enter the ring at Grand National Rodeo. However, Kreuz said he preferred Bangor, based on his initial warm welcome, and San Francisco’s lack of trees. Once back in Germany, he said, “If Kennedy can say, ‘I am a Berliner,’ then I am a Bangor.”
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: Kreuz’s fame was fleeting. He was invited back to Bangor the following year, for the ribbon-cutting at the local mall (the first one Kreuz had ever seen). But he was fired from his job at the brewery for taking a month-long trip. Tensions at work had been rising, as Kreuz chafed against the company trying to capitalize on his fame, and he had admitted in an interview that he drank a competitor’s beer, as the brand he helped make wasn’t distributed near his home. He returned to Bangor again in 1979, this time at his own expense, and found a German tourist going to Bangor deliberately had somewhat less novelty than one arriving by accident—the people who had made him a celebrity had now lost interest. He never returned to America, although he did continue to pay taxes on his acre of land.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: Kreuz was also introduced to another Bangor local celebrity, this one a permanent resident. Andre The Seal was a harbor seal pup found in Penobscot Bay by harbormaster Harry Goodridge. He raised the pup, hoping it would be a scuba diving companion, but assuming the seal would soon return to the wild. He never did, acting as constant companion to Goodridge until his death in 1986 (the seal’s, not the harbormaster’s). Andre was the subject of several books, a PBS documentary, and 1994 film Andre, starring a young Tina Majorino as a girl who raises a seal pup caught in a fishing net.
Further down the Wormhole: Kreuz’s acre of land was nowhere near Bangor. It was outside of St. Francis, a very small town on the U.S.-Canadian border (the population was less than 500 people at the last census and couldn’t have been much bigger in 1977). The longest international border in the world, our border with Canada is also one of the most peaceful, but it was not always so. As both countries’ settlers pushed west, there were several disputes over a western border that ended up simply being a straight line. The final one of these was the Pig War, a skirmish over a few small islands between Seattle and Vancouver. We’ll revisit the final battle between the U.S. and Canada next week.
65 Comments
I was hoping the twist would be when he paid to go back to Bangor he’d actually end up in Bangor ,Northern Ireland by mistake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangor,_County_Down
There was another tourist (also German IIRC) who thought he was going to Sydney, Australia but instead bought a ticket to Sidney, Montana.
Besides bigger mountains and an absence of kangaroos, that would be a more difficult difference to discern.
There’s also a Bangor in Wales, you could do a worldwide Bangor tour.
The Welsh Bangor was also the subject of a 1980 novelty single that made it to #3 in the UK charts:
I’m from New England, I think it would be fun to visit the the bigger towns New England named it’s places after.
There’s also a Bangor in Wales, you could do a worldwide Bangor tour.And at each stop in a Bangor, they get served mash!
That reminds me of an experience from years ago. I used to ride a commuter train to/from NYC, and my train line had a stop in a town called Croton Falls, NY. In a nearby county about 20-30 minutes away by car, there was also a town called Croton-on-Hudson, which was on a different train line.
On a few occasions during my years of commuting, I overheard a passenger talking to the guy taking the tickets about how they wanted to go to Croton-on-Hudson. Whoops, you’re going to have get off the train and either take a taxi or go back to Grand Central and start over on the right train line.
He had to have seen a picture of San Francisco before the trip, right? German is also close enough to English that you should be able to see a sign for Bangor at the airport and realize that it’s not the right place… I’m very suspicious of this guy…
I’m very suspicious of him too! I bet he snuck in to steal the formula for Moxie soda.Someone should have checked his bags for fake mustaches.
I suppose in his defense airports are often a long way from the cities they serve, and if you’ve just woken up you might be confused whether you’re taxiing into Dulles or Denver.
You’re generally right, but the Bangor airport is a whopping 4 miles from downtown.
Someone should have checked his bags for fake mustaches.I’d be more worried if he had his bags packed with real mustaches.
Sounds like he was too jetlagged to pay attention.
Sounds like he was too jetlagged to pay attention.An excellent point. I’ve never made mistakes like that, but I must admit that sitting at the computer after a good night’s sleep, sipping my second cup of coffee and looking at Google Earth, and sitting on an international long-haul as we land in a place where I have only a halting command of the language and wondering whether it’s yesterday or tomorrow, are certainly two very different situations.
Getting fired from your job at a brewery for drinking a competitor’s beer is so GermanBut the fact that he came back and got the cold shoulder is so Maine“Excuse me sir, do you know where I am?”“Well, by the looks o’ things, I’d say you’re standing in my pawch”“Does this road go into town?”“Been here all m’ life, road ain’t gone nowhaar”
Continuing to responsibly pay taxes on property he never visited somehow seems very German, too.
“How do I get to the San Francisco Symphony?”“Practice, pract…” Wait, that’s a joke for a different set of crusty residents.
That’s far too many words for the typical Mainer. A more common response to your second question would just be, “Nope.”
“How’d’ya know my name was Mac?”And, yeah, if you’ve never lived anywhere rural, this is exactly what asking for directions is like.
I wonder why this story is making news now. Not just here, but six months ago I hadn’t heard of this story, but over the last half year, I’ve probably seen ten versions of Kreuz’s misadventure.
People used to fly in the Before Times, and had magical adventures now lost to us.
I can actually explain this. There are a few Wikipedia-oriented communities or accounts on social media, and we all see each other’s stuff. I’ll often see a topic on Cool Freaks Wikipedia, or Depths of Wikipedia, and make a note of it to write about later.
We get it, Vago. You’re in the pocket of Big Kreuz.
Bangor? I don’t even know her! Bangor, Maine is a weird stop from Germany to San Francisco. Flights must have been a lot different in 1977. Now, they most likely would have a stop in New York.
Not to mention planning a trip where you just get a plane ticket and check into whatever hotel some taxi driver chooses to take you to, no other reservations or anything
According to wikipedia, Bangor was a refueling stop for jets arriving from Europe in the 70s and 80s, until the development of longer-range jets in the 90s
Tis true. In 1989 we flew from London to Orlando via Bangor. In a 757. It was awful.
Tis true. In 1989 we flew from London to Orlando via Bangor. In a 757. It was awful.1989? Yes, it was.
Pilots on planes flying from Europe to NY or Boston, still have an odd habit of informing passengers that we’re flying over Bangor (as a native of the town, it always makes me happy).
Yeah, we all got a reminder of that on several occasions in the aftermath of the Great Recession. With air travel still down, some US airlines had put 757s back into service on routes that might otherwise have been served by more modern widebodies. In a couple of different winters, powerful jet streams plopped into the North Atlantic jetways, which was great eastbound but required westbound 757s to stop in such places to refuel, as in days of old.Not that the 757 wasn’t the eighth wonder of the world when it came out, but it was just the first baby step into jetliners that could fetch interior airports of the US from their Continental counterparts with a full load of passengers. Subsequent models that could do that more handily were real game changers for the airlines as well as passengers.
When I went to Paris a couple of years ago, the international leg left from Salt Lake City.
And I live on the west coast, so SF or LA would have been the usual, but no, my flight took off from SLC.
I can’t help but feel Stephen King and the Langoliers were somehow involved.
I believe Stephen King donated his former home in Bangor to become a writers’ retreat. I would love to go there and work on a story about a writer working on a story at a spooky, cursed, haunted writers’ retreat in Bangor
Is the writer in your story working on a story about a writer working on a story at a spook, cursed, haunted writers’ retreat in Bangor?
How did you guess?? That is spooky!
It’s a very cool old Victorian.
I hear he comes by and watches them through the holes in the paintings and floor boards.
Fun Fact: The airport scenes in the 80s TV movie Langoliers were filmed at Bangor airport.
1995.
That factoid is literally the only “fun” anyone has ever managed to wrest from the godawful soul-sucking Langoliers miniseries.
Tina Majorino should be in more stuff. Still pissed off they never offered her a good enough guest star part on iZombie to get her to accept
A very revealing photo. Chosen with purpose I assume?
Bangor.
Reminds me of tourists who think they’re going to Sydney, Australia and instead end up in Sydney, Nova Scotia.https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-thursday-edition-1.4047704/a-tale-of-two-sydneys-dutch-teen-tries-to-visit-australia-but-ends-up-in-nova-scotia-1.4047709
Trying to book at flight from Melbourne to Sydney, Qantas’ own website plugged in Sydney, NS for me, and I didn’t notice. Of course, as soon as I saw 36 hour travel times with multiple changes, I knew it was wrong, but making that first mistake was very easy.
I can’t help but imagine him as being like the Key & Peele sketch where the guy is just AMAZED by a continental breakfast.
I wonder what happened the German tourist who got Portland, Maine confused with Portland, Oregon.
So he got the real Portland confused with the imitation Portland?
Many years ago, I was on a plane landing at JFK coming back from Asia. As we were deplaning, a chinese woman asked in a panic, “This isn’t Seattle?” Always kinda wondered what happened to her. Probably nothing bad, but who knows?
Along the same theme, I once was stuck in a long line at the passport control along the footbridge between the US and Canadian Niagara Falls. The reason? Two young Asian tourists who thought they were going to spend the night in Vancouver.
She might not have been coming from China.
Just a side note.. Andre was from Rockport. A good hour and a half drive south from Bangoah.
I’m from Buffalo, and we will claim any celebrity born in the same time zone as one of our own. Did you know Lucille Ball was born in Jamestown, a mere hour and 20 minute drive away? Good ol’ Buffalo! (10,000 Maniacs are also from Jamestown, and people used to consider them a “Buffalo band” because it was either that or the Goo Goo Dolls.)
In my tribe is a favorite album around these parts.
I’ll bet even Buffalo won’t claim Jamestown’s opioid problem, which depending on the metric used, is the worst in the state.
You’re lucky. The only famous person from where I grew up is Rand Paul.
I am familiar with this phenomenon: everybody that was born within 250 miles of Atlanta is “from Atlanta”. And they will all variously claim REM, Outkast, Ray Charles, The Allman Brothers, Migos, Alan Jackson, and the B-52’s as all “from their home town”, despite “their hometown” essentially consisting of the northern two-thirds of the state of Georgia.
There are a few stories of people attempting to go to Sydney Australia during their summer and ending up in Sydney Nova Scotia in our winter. A British couple in 2002 and later an Argentine and lately an Italian couple. I imagine the shock was extreme as the weather in NS in say February is vastly different than in the sunny southern hemisphere.
I heard that some years ago, someone went through every wikipedia article about Maine and put in “Stephen King” in the “See also” section. No, I have not verified this information.
I have my doubts, but someone should verify if he’s an actual king.
See also the Oakland/Auckland case:https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-04-03-me-28522-story.htmlEven in the age of bar/QR codes on everything, not to mention post 9/11 heightened security theater, it’s still quite possible to end up on the wrong plane,* especially when things are busy. And there’s essentially no control anywhere, anytime, on your ability to get off the plane;** if you don’t realize your own mistake, at most they’ll catch you at passport control, not even that for domestic travel.* I’ve witnessed this twice (once to a young teen traveling alone, once to a confused older party). In the former case, the plane was to the LA area as intended, but not to the choice among its several airports where his family was expecting him. Many radio transmissions, turned into phone calls on the ground, were made in the subsequent negotiation. I think they ended up putting him in a hotel room for the night. In the latter case, I was in the old fellow’s row, and wished I’d pulled the string a little when he remarked before takeoff on how odd it was that the cabin announcements included a weather report for Albuquerque. His intended destination was also LA. They took good care of him (this is quite embarrassing and perhaps even a punishable violation of some rule or another, so they tend to be nice out of more than just the goodness of their hearts). ** This is not always an accident like with the fellow who got off in Bangor, Maine rather than continuing on to SF. In the byzantine world of airfare pricing, sometimes it proves cheaper to book a one-stop or connecting flight that goes through where you want to go and hop off partway than to play the game honestly and get a ticket to your actual destination. Sometimes called “hidden city ticketing,” it isn’t actually illegal unless you also violate border-related laws, but it is kinda weaselly and might be prohibited in the fine print of your contract of carriage with the airline. I’m told that, especially if you make a habit of it, you might find some love letters from their lawyers awaiting you when you get back home… or even being told to stop by the ticket counter when you go to check in for the return trip.
Every few years back home we’d get a wayward soul who somehow managed to misbook Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada for Sydney, Australia when planning their flights.
“He never returned to America, although he did continue to pay taxes on his acre of land.”I believe the phrase is “absolute mensch”