Friday, January 30, 2015

Dairy Maid. Lisbon Falls, Maine. And where's Downeast?

Ici en Maine when the town's name includes the word "Falls", it always means a mill town, or--more likely these days--ex-mill town. When the name incorporates the word "port", the town is on the coast, so expect to pay more for real estate. In the 19th century, when the lobster fishery wasn't much to speak of, and before summah people discovered the Maine coast, it was the mill towns by the falls on the rivers (Saco, Mousam, Kennebec, Androscoggin, Penobscot) that prospered. (Or at least the mill owners did). These days it's coastal towns with their shorefront and high real estate valuations that have bigger tax bases and, generally, better schools and services.
Of course's there's Bucksport, which is a mill town that happens to be on the coast. Make that an ex-mill town: the Verso paper mill shut down for good last month, after 75 years. The mill's been sold off to some Canadian scrap metal dealers.
That's one big divide in Maine: between the coast and everywhere else. Although the coast of Washington County--downeast--has more in common with upriver Maine than the rest of the coast. Fewer tourists and summer people. There used to be a sardine industry (and sardine-canning industry) on the downeast coast but that's defunct: it's all lobsters now. The Gulf of Maine has become one big lobster farm.
People have different notions as to where 'downeast' begins, and it's probably a moving target. At one time, 'downeast' used to be anything east of Bath. These days some people consider anything east of Belfast as Downeast, but I'd say Downeast Maine starts east of Mount Desert Island.

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