Main Street sewer construction in Biddeford, Maine, circa 1914. Looking toward the Thatcher Hotel and Washington Street. Photographer: Robert Henry Gay.

Source: Used with permission of the McArthur Public Library photo collection. All rights reserved. Image 7430 of the Maine Memory Network.

Main street sewer construction in Biddeford, Maine, circa 1914. Looking west, toward Elm. Photographer: Robert Henry Gay.

Source: Used with permission of the McArthur Public Library photo collection. All rights reserved. Image 7431 of the Maine Memory Network.

Main Street sewer construction in Biddeford, Maine, circa 1914. This and the following two photographs show construction combining a brick invert with cast-in-place concrete. Photographer: Robert Henry Gay.

Source: Used with permission of the McArthur Public Library photo collection. All rights reserved. Image 7429 of the Maine Memory Network.

Main street sewer construction in Biddeford, Maine, circa 1914. Possibly Summer Street. Photographer: Robert Henry Gay.

Source: Used with permission of the McArthur Public Library photo collection. All rights reserved. Image 7442 of the Maine Memory Network.

Main street sewer construction in Biddeford, Maine, circa 1914. Close-up of oval sewer. Sewer runs from White's Wharf up Main to Alfred and up to Summer Street. Photographer: Robert Henry Gay.

Source: Used with permission of the McArthur Public Library photo collection. All rights reserved. Image 7443 of the Maine Memory Network.

The Parmley System was a comprehensive system of reinforced concrete constructions (monolithic, segmental, and unit pipes). The first patent for the system was issued in 1902. This catalog features segmental pipe construction, which Parmley believed was one of the most efficient methods by which sewers and pipe lines could be built.

Parmley Segmental concrete construction in wet bottom conditions. Bath, Maine.

Source: Walter C. Parmley, The Parmley System of Arch Construction: Catalogue E, Segmental Concrete, Plain and Reinforced (New York, NY: Walter C. Parmley, 1927), p. 42.