Ogunquit, before 1980, was a village corporation and functioned for the most part as a town of its own, supporting its own police, fire, highway and sewer departments. The town is a well known actors and artists colony, featuring the historic Ogunquit Playhouse and beautiful beaches. Perkins Cove, south of the main village on Shore Road, combines a working waterfront, a restaurant, an art museum, and fine cottages.
Waterville’s commercial strip that is Kennedy Memorial Drive continues into Oakland for about a mile before becoming a more scenic road. See photos. Here the village emerges as it sits at Messalonskee Stream. Long the home of the New England Music Camp, recreational opportunities include access to several of the Belgrade lakes.
Originally settled in 1831 and organized for the assessment of taxes in 1866, the town itself was incorporated on February 24, 1897. See photos. The main village, is located on the Mattawamkeag River, just south of Smyrna Mills. Its mountainous terrain, known as the Oakfield Hills, earned it the name “Switzerland of the Aroostook” by one observer. Sam Drew Mountain is the highest point at 1,516 feet.
Norway-South Paris is a community of two adjoining towns serving as a retail center for southern Oxford County. It includes a commercial strip with the usual array of auto dealerships and fast food. Pennesseewassee Lake, the largest of several in the town, abuts the main village and contributes mightily to local recreational opportunities. A clerical “correction” of the originally proposed “Norage,” the Indian word for falls, resulted in the name Norway.
The modest Northport Music Theater features contemporary American musical theater. See photos. In addition to its long coastline facing Islesboro on Penobscot Bay, the town has frontage on the three-mile long Pitcher Pond and all of its Knight Pond. The historic Bayside village, of closely space summer cottages, lies off U.S. Route 1. St. Clair Preserve protects nearly all of unspoiled Knight’s Pond with 304 acres of mixed forest, bogs, swamps and fields has been home to black bears, bobcats, fishers, foxes, and deer.
This sparsely populated, but growing community, is blessed with water resources including Bog Lake, Fulton Lake, the lower portion of Long Lake, and the winding upper reaches of the Machias River. See map. The main village lies on Maine Route 192 about ten miles north of Machias. A small settlement, Smith Landing, lies on the Machias River in the south of the town. Blueberries are the main crop produced in the old fields and harvested much the same way as in early times. Timber harvesting continues both privately by individuals and commercially by paper companies.
is a community in Hancock County within the town of Mount Desert. Its namesake harbor sits at the northeast side of the entrance to Somes Sound, which splits the island of Mount Desert. Routes 3 and 198 serve the village, passing Upper Hadlock Pond in Acadia National Park. The pond had been a source of…
North Yarmouth’s rapidly growing community, nearly triplng its population since 1970, is within easy reach of Yarmouth, Brunswick, and the greater Portland area. King William’s War started here when Indians attacked the settlement in the late 1680’s.
The North Berwick Woolen Mill is a historic landmark on the banks of the Great Works River that passes through the main village. See photos. More than a dozen National Register historic places testify to the town’s significant role in Maine’s early history.It is home to the historic Hussey Plow Company and a Pratt & Whitney defense plant.
Throughout its history Nobleboro remained a rural community, but because of nearby lakes, rivers, and seacoast, about 37% of its inhabitants are non-resident “summer people.” See photos. Damariscotta Lake is accessible and nearby Great Salt Bay is the state’s first marine shellfish protected area. Shipbuilding was once a major industry with twenty-six shipyards in town at the peak. Maine’s first recorded meteorite (and the second in the U.S.) arrived in 1823.
Built in 1872, the Sunday River Bridge, called “he most painted and photographed covered bridge in the state,” crosses the river of the same name. See photos. The Sunday River Ski Resort is located here. On Maine Route 26, Newry is the gateway to the hiking trails, including the Appalachian Trail, of Grafton Township. Step Falls Preserve, the first preserve of the Maine Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, has 24 acres of cascades and pools.
Newport features the six-mile long Sebasticook Lake, providing recreational opportunities for residents and summer visitors. Drought conditions in 2002 lowered the water level substantially. See photos. Prior to the opening of what became the Maine Central Railroad in 1855, Newport was a center of stage coach transportation. Newport is still a heavily traveled crossroads, now of Interstate 95, U.S. Route 2, and Maine Routes 7, 11, and 100. The area east of Sebasticook Lake is known as East Newport.
The old center of Newfield village was destroyed by the great forest fire of 1947. See photos. The Willowbrook Historic District covers this area and the buildings that survived the fire. In 1984 the application to establish the historic district reported “Very little change in the buildings or landscape has occurred in the last one-hundred years so that the sense of time and place of a remote southwestern Maine rural community of the 19th century remains strongly present.” At the source of the Little Ossipee River, and dotted with ponds and streams, Newfield is a rapidly growing community about twenty miles northwest of Sanford
Damariscotta Lake is a major destination for adult alewives with intentions of spawning the next generation. The fishway near the dam at Damariscotta Mills in Newcastle provides access to and from the lake. See photos. Newcastle, located on U.S. Route 1 just west of the Damariscotta River, is home to Maine’s oldest Catholic Church, St. Patrick’s, completed in 1808. Several nature preserves in Lincoln County are in Newcastle. Nearby Great Salt Bay is protected by Maine legislation and is the state’s first marine shellfish protected area.
Settled in about 1794, the town is on the old stage route from Bangor through China to Vassalboro near Augusta. Newburgh Center village is on combined U.S. Route 202 and Maine Route 9. See photos. The Kennard Road hiking trail, originally developed by the Newburgh Heritage Trust, is a one-mile walk, with parking available.
Framed by the Carrabassett and Sandy Rivers, this irregularly shaped town’s main village lies on Maine Route 27 between New Portland and Farmington. See photos. The Maine Wood Turning company is on Route 27 in the village. Nearby Bauds, Mill, and Lily ponds, and frontage on Porter Lake, provide wide fishing and recreational opportunities.
After the Civil War, Maine, like other states, was losing population to the great westward migration. A conscious public policy of encouraging Swedish immigration resulted in the very successful settlement of Swedes in New Sweden. Just northwest of Caribou on Maine Route 161, the town is just south of Stockholm.
just east of Farmington, has been growing consistently in population over the past four decades. New Sharon village straddles the Sandy River, which winds through from Farmington on its way to Starks and then Norridgewock where it enters the Kennebec River. The 1916 steel bridge, now retired from service, crosses the river at the end of the main street.
North New Portland hosts Morton’s Country Store, the Community Church, and Chase Memorial Hall. This village lies at the junction of routes 146 and 16, with Gilman Stream, and its Dam, flowing through it. See photos. The Carrabassett River, with its spectacular rocky bed, passes through East New Portland Village and under an arch bridge.
In the 1880’s the town had a large tannery, two saw mills, and a starch factory. It has frontage on Drew and Nickerson lakes, along with a half-dozen small ponds. See photos. The main village of the town, just west of Houlton, nearly surrounds Nickerson Lake, which it shares with Linneus. It is the birthplace of Dora Pinkham, the first woman to served in the Maine Legislature.