Odds and Ends From The MUSEUM!
The story from the Lewiston Weekly Journal, Oct. 26, 1899 continues…from the train to town! (Note: spelling, capitalization, punctuation as written in the newspaper)
“Inquiry reveals that the mill is one-half miles to the southeast and that the town is being built on the left of the main road and about one-half way between the depot and the mill. A regular stage is ready. It is a large open express wagon drawn by two strong horses, containing three or four seats. Two or three two-seated covered carriages, one drawn by a handsome pair of blacks, await some of the engineers or contractors. Many of the passengers, however, are boarding a novelty, which is a low jigger upon each side of which is built a long plank seat, covered with burlap. Into the rear of this the passengers step and sit facing each other, as in an omnibus or electric car. Riding on this, one gets frontier life indeed!
The road is carefully laid out and well made. It passes through a narrow, burnt section so that stumps and tall charred trunks of trees are most conspicuous. The land about is generally level, but broken here and there by mounds. Farther away are dense forests of maple, spruce, birch and pine. About one-half mile from the depot the road parts and between these two roads or avenues, as they are already named, are cross streets with such ideal names as Colby, Bates, and Bowdoin. The name of the chief avenue, that running most direct from the station to the mill and on the western side, is Katahdin avenue; others are Maine avenue for the University of Maine, Highland avenue, Penobscot avenue, Aroostook avenue, etc.
Between the eastern avenue which follows along beautiful Millinocket river and Katahdin avenue, is the town site. This has its residence section, which is nearest to the station, where several permanent residences are being erected in sightly locations. Then is the business section where stores, boarding and houses and hotels are rapidly nearing completion.
Just at this time on the town site the stage of transition is going on. On the one hand are tents, shanties, lean-tos, boulders, stumps and even stump piles – everything which indicates typical frontier life; and on the other hand, rapidly coming up out of this crudeness, through the hands of many energetic citizens, and by carefully developed plans, are the best of streets, neat homes, large stores, boarding houses and hotels. One of the hotels, as now planned, is to cost fifteen thousand dollars and is to be first class in every respect.”
This information and that from the previous column is just a small portion of the front-page article from 1899. The mill site is described as “an open field.” Much of the article goes on to describe how the mill construction was proceeding.
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