Mexico

[MEX-ih-ko] a town in Oxford County, settled in 1780 and incorporated on February 13, 1818 from Holmanstown Plantation. In 1857 it annexed land from Roxbury.

It was named to support the Mexicans in their struggle for independence from Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

E.G. Kimball wrote a history (cited below) of the town, including these observations:

In 1826 a bridge was attempted a the ‘fording place’. Swift river was, and still is, famous for turning from a tame stream into a raging river and so much planning went into the building of the bridge.

It was placed near the mouth, where it flows into the Androscoggin, and “where the post travels from the east”.

The bridge was swept away by the freshet of 1827, the ice and logs tearing it away as if it were made of toothpicks.

[Before 1839] The earliest post-riders went on horseback, their mail pouches strapped on behind their saddles. Mail stuck out of their pockets and hat bands.

The rider carried a tin horn and as he galloped through a settlement he’d blast a signal on his horn and the house holders would run out to meet him, grabbing the mail as he galloped on. No householder would dream of delaying the post.

Mexico had many men whose efforts were the threads that built the town from a small farming settlement on the river’s edge to the expanding town of Mexico.

One such man was Nathan S. Baker, active in politics, a member of the school commission, a selectman, town clerk and town treasurer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life was tough for most people 100 years later during the Great Depression.

The rivers and the mills have long dominated the landscape.

Here are the recollection of Mrs B., interviewed as part of the American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940:

“Then I went into the mills, thank the Lord. I went to work in a paper bag factory; I operated a press that printed the bags — I used to feed the machine. I made seventeen dollars a week. When the gong rang, we were through. That was good. we didn’t have to think about work until the next morning. we used to walk home — it was about a mile; when you’re young you don’t mind so much. when you got home, your mother had the meal ready; you had your dinner, got dolled up, and went out with the boy friend. You have a lot of fun in a small town. You know everybody. That was in Rumford; we lived in a little town nearby — in Mexico.”

“A month after I was married, my husband got hurt in the mill. He almost lost his right arm. He worked in the Oxford paper mill — you’ve heard of that — feeding the machine, and got his arm pulled into the roll. It was burnt to the cords; it’s lucky it didn’t burn the cords, otherwise he’d have had to have his arm amputated. First they put in a steel plate, but the bone wouldn’t knit, so they took silvers from both his legs, and now he’s pretty well. He got eighteen dollars a week compensation, but they took that away from him after three months. They wanted to give him a lump sum — $300. but they wouldn’t have taken him back to work. He figured that it would be better to go back to work, because they guaranteed him his job that way. After he was back a short while, the mill closed down. So what good was [that??]”

The town, across the Swift River and the Androscoggin River from Rumford, is home to many workers in the Rumford paper mill. In the 1960’s, the mill employed over 3,000 people; by 2009 it employed less than 600.  The crash in this and other manufacturing has contributed to the sharp population decline Mexico has experienced since 1970.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Population decline, the need for consolidation, and the focus on job-related education have changed the community’s school system.  The old high school is now a recreation center and a home to the police department.  Mountain Valley High School in Rumford serves both communities. The School of Applied Technology is in Mexico.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of its noted residents include 1970’s Texas Rangers baseball pitcher Stan Thomas; Lucia Cormier, legislator and candidate for U.S. Senate; Edmund S. Muskie, governor, U.S. Senator; Native American Molly Ockett lived there for a time. Member of Congress and Maine Supreme Court Justice Charles Wesley Walton was born here.

U.S. Route 2 and Maine Routes 17, 108, and 120 serve the Rumford-Mexico community.

Form of Government: Town Meeting-Select Board-Manager.

Additional resources

American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940. “Interview with Mrs. B.” http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?wpa:5:./temp/~ammem_g6eI:: (accessed January 30, 2012)

Bragdon, Ruby and Theresa Thomas, eds. A Story of the Town of Mexico 1818-1968: one hundred fiftieth birthday celebration and what has gone before. Mexico, Me. 1968.

Dixfield Bicentennial Committee. The Early History of Dixfield Maine: including the section of Mexico near Webb’s River. Dixfield, Me. The Dixfield Historical Society. 1976.

Farrington, Anna M. Mexico, Maine July 5th, 1922. 1922. Typescript of a handwritten manuscript at Maine State Library.

Kimball, E.G. History. From The Lewiston Sun Journal. April 27, 1968. http://www.mexicomaine.net/html/history.htm (accessed January 22, 2012)

Labonté, Youville. Marriages of St. John, Rumford, Me (1866-1939) and of St. Theresa, Mexico, Me. 1955?

Pictorial History of Rumford/Mexico. Rumford, Me. Rumford Area Historical Society. 1995.