Ship Building
Though shipbuilding has been an important part of Maine’s economy, wooden boatbuilding has had a longer history, one closely related to shipbuilding. From colonial times, fishermen built their own boats, which included pulling boats (wherries, double-enders now known as peapods, and dories), larger ketch-rigged boats (Hampton boats and small pinkies), sloop boats (Muscongus Bay boats and Friendship sloops), and small schooners.The first vessel built in Maine by Europeans was the [...]

At the Maine State Museum you can be greeted by a huge locomotive called The Lion, at the Maine Historical Society you can find beautiful maps and photographs, at the Farnsworth Museum you can check out Robert Indiana’s work and visit the Wyeth Center, you get the picture, many of these museums harbor antiquities that [...]

A Brief History of Papermaking in Maine

Discovery of Papermaking
In 105 A.D. Ts’ai Lun, a Chinese court official, mashed pieces of mulberry bark, cloth and hemp in water until they were reduced to pulp. He then drained away the water, pressing and drying the matted fibers. The result was paper.
The secret of papermaking remained in China [...]

Maine’s most famous full-time resident is, without question, the writer Stephen King. The Bangor-based master of horror has based nearly all of his books in Maine, frequently setting the story in a fictional town called Derry, or an imaginary island by the name of Castle Rock. As such, Mainers have suffered through many films based on [...]

A nice place to visit is the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor Maine.  Here you can learn about Native American tribes and see how they are doing today. Also be sure and stop by the Penobscot Indian Museum in Indian Island near Old Town.  The Maine State Museum,in Augusta, has a great collection that dates [...]

Located on the west bank of the Penobscot River in Prospect, Maine, in an area known as the Penobscot Narrows, Fort Knox is one of the best preserved fortifications on the New England seacoast. The Fort has many architectural features present only to itself, as well as a rich history behind its cannon batteries.
Maine was [...]

Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Marguerite Zorach, Berenice Abbott, Georgia O’Keeffe, and three generations of the Wyeth family.
The Maine Art Museum Trail include Bates College Museum of Art (Lewiston), Bowdoin College Museum of Art (Brunswick), Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville), Farnsworth Art Museum (Rockland), Ogunquit Museum of American Art (Ogunquit), Portland Museum of [...]

View College / University in Maine in a larger map

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Current research indicates there are possibly seventy-five Underground Railroad sites throughout Maine. In Portland, several well-documented Underground Railroad and anti-slavery sites not only tell the history of the abolitionist movement but also articulate the African American educational, religious, cultural, and social experience.

Maine has a long history (see below timeline) and it is an important one.  Its name is mysterious, though some say the name is a referral to Maine as the main land, separating it from its 4000 islands. It received its Statehood in 1820, some say at the present day Jameson Tavern in Freeport. Since [...]

Drive anywhere in Maine, you’ll most likely cross a bridge.  Due to Maine’s Coast, Lakes, Rivers, Railways and gulches, a bridge is helpful to transport you and your family out of harms way.  There are numerous bridges in Maine, all kinds, from covered bridges, big spanners, short rock bridges, and granite bridges like the one [...]

Spanish American War

January 25, 1898 –
The U.S.S. Maine enters Havana harbor, about three weeks before it was blown up.
The battleship Maine drifted lazily at its mooring. Although the Havana night was moonless, the Maine’s gleaming white hull — longer than a football field — contrasted against the blackness of the sea and sky. Smoke wisped [...]