Images of America

The Kennebec and Sheepscot Rivers of Maine, natural boundaries for the Wiscasset region, provided the water highways for early explorers, traders, and missionaries.

For over 360 years, the area has been home to shipbuilders, fishermen, farmers, and tradesmen. This marvelous photographic chronicle traces not only the rich historical traditions of the area, but also the shared sense of life's unbroken continuity present in the towns of the Wiscasset region: Alna, Dresden, Westport Island, Wiscasset, and Woolwich. Vintage photographs profile a few of those who quietly inspired others through their efforts to make life better in the region, as well as those men and women of wealth and vision who provided the area with a legacy by their lifestyles and great homes. The book also features views of local taverns, courthouses, general stores, churches, and schools--all the foundations of a changing, vivacious, and growing community.

Elizabeth O'Connell and Stephen Harding capture the magic of Eagle Island through years of research, interviews, and the collection of photographs and visual images by the Friends of Peary's Eagle Island (FOPEI).

Eagle Island, located off the coast of Harpswell, Maine, is far enough into Casco Bay to offer isolation but close enough to capture the fascination of a young man. Its rocky spine meets the open Atlantic in rugged cliffs with the strength to transform the momentum of ocean swells into plumes of brilliant spray. The interior, covered with a diversity of flora, presents a gentle welcoming to seabirds and the occasional fauna. Robert E. Peary, a Bowdoin College graduate, bought the island and, using local craftsmen, built a cottage for his family to use as their summer home. After his discovery of the North Pole in 1909 with its celebration and controversy, Eagle Island became the family retreat, a refuge from the public scrutiny attendant an international hero. This is the story of three generations of the Peary family and their Eagle Island home. Peary's ""Promised Land,"" now a State of Maine Historic Site and museum, has become a magical place for countless visitors, resulting in its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 2014.

Baxter State Park is the guardian of this vast wilderness area for all to enjoy. Baxter State Park and Katahdin draws on rich collections of archival images dating back to the 19th century.

The character of Baxter State Park and the great mountain at its heart can be powerfully conveyed through two words: forever wild. The mountain was known as Ktaadn, or ""the greatest mountain,"" to native peoples who first frequented Maine's interior northern forest. They were followed by colonial adventurers who explored its cirques and massive granite walls, by those who studied its geology and flora and fauna, and later by loggers who came to extract the virgin timber from nearby valleys. Finally, recreational climbing and camping led to an effort to protect the rugged beauty of these mountains, lakes, and valleys. When calls for preservation went unheeded, former governor Percival P. Baxter, beginning in the 1930s, purchased some 201,000 acres over a period of 30 years and gifted them to the state.

Around Rockland is a fascinating pictorial history of this dynamic city, documenting its development from 1870 to 1970.

This wonderful photographic history of Rockland by the Shore Village Historical Society brings to life the story of this dynamic city between 1870 and 1970. Rockland's unique industrial heritage is documented in great detail--particularly lime manufacturing, which has brought national attention to Rockland over the years. Lime burning led to shipbuilding and other commercial endeavors, making Rockland the shipping and quarrying center of Midcoast Maine, and many of the photographs collected here show the proud shipping and quarrying traditions of the city in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Most of the images that have been selected for this book are rare and previously unpublished, and many of them--although they may have seemed commonplace when originally taken--give us a tremendous insight into the way life was lived in the last century. At once comprehensive and accessible, this delightful book will earn a lasting place on the bookshelves of area homes and cottages, as well as in the hearts of Rocklanders young and old alike.