36 Years Ago This Week Grateful Dead Play in Oxford

One of the greatest concert events in Maine history happened 36 years ago, this 4th of July weekend. The Grateful Dead played two epic shows at Oxford Plains Speedway!

For two days, July 2 and 3 of 1988, the state was pretty much shut down by thousands of Dead Heads who came to see their heroes, the Grateful Dead, play at Oxford Plains Speedway.

According to Dead Aficionados, these two shows were two of the best Dead shows of the 1980s. It would be the 15th and final time that the Grateful Dead would play in Maine.

These shows are the stuff of legend, so we asked Mainers on Facebook about their memories of this show. Take a look:

Memories of The 1988 Oxford Plains Speedway Grateful Dead Show

Mainers remember one of the most legendary concerts in Maine history. The two-night stand by the Grateful Dead was in Oxford on July 2 and 3, 1988. See some of the stories and pictures from the event below.

Gallery Credit: The Captain

Here's a little extra bonus for you. The Dead stayed at Inn By The Sea in Cape Elizabeth, and Jerry Garcia left this demo tape behind of a song they were working on! A nice parting gift from Jerry!

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To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

Gallery Credit: Sophia Crisafulli