This citizen volunteer program was intended to fill a gap in the country’s air defenses. Begun during World War II, it ended its mission on January 31, 1959. In the mid-1950s, 350,000 volunteers from 16,010 observations posts reported to forty-nine “filter centers” across the country. In a letter to the New York Times dated January…
Beginning in 1952, Loring Air Force Base, and, in 1953, its 42nd Bombardment Wing of B-52 bombers, created an economic supplement to potato processing in Limestone. It was renamed in 1955 for Maine’s Korean War Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Charles J. Loring, Jr. Loring Air Force Base extended for 9,000 acres and its combined…
in Penobscot County, incorporated in 1811 under the name of New Charleston. Higgins Classical Institute, for “the promotion of christian education,” was established in 1891. Once the site of a U.S. Air Force radar and communications base, it now hosts a correctional center using the former base facilities. See photos.