Maine
Restoring Maine’s Once-Vibrant Public Buildings
By Sarah Stebbins
From our March 2024 issue
In 1880, the prospect of a new auditorium in the town of Dover generated much enthusiasm. “We can build a hall to which we shall be pleased to invite friends and strangers, let us be about it!” declared the Piscataquis Observer. Two years later, nearly 800 people attended the grand opening of the 7,200-square-foot mansard-roof Central Hall. In the ensuing decades, it hosted town meetings, dances, plays, graduations, silent movies, roller-skating nights, and basketball games. In 1925, two years after Dover merged with neighboring Foxcroft to form Maine’s only hyphenated town, an indoor shooting range was added. But the second-floor event space, with its handsome wooden stage and balcony, eventually became unusable on account of a leaking roof. In 2008, the town offices on the lower level moved to another building. Central Hall sat empty and residents faced a choice: demolish an aging behemoth that hadn’t hosted a social function in at least a decade or invest in its restoration.
Deferred maintenance, tight municipal budgets, and dwindling participation in churches and fraternal organizations have left once-vibrant community buildings by the wayside in small towns across Maine. Changes in industry, like the shuttering of 19th-century wool and lumber mills in Dover-Foxcroft, have destabilized economies and forced residents to seek work elsewhere, leaving them with less time to invest in their hometowns, says Brad Miller, preservation manager at the nonprofit Maine Preservation. “When we meet with economic-development folks in rural communities and ask, ‘Where do people primarily work?’ it’s usually like an hour away,” he says. “And so there isn’t the ability for everyone to pitch in at the Masonic lodge to sustain that place.”
A community without a communal gathering spot can feel isolating. “In this area, if you want to go out, you go to a bar,” says Bridgton musician Elizabeth Roth, who found herself constantly searching for other venues to perform and hang out in. In 2020, she opened Bear Mountain Music Hall in an 1844 church turned Grange hall in neighboring Waterford. “I saw it as a place to create community and have a conversation without having to scream,” she says. Following the Grange-hall model, she offers diverse events: ballroom-dancing lessons, author talks, and art classes, in addition to concerts by mostly local musicians. She’s currently working on opening a café in the former schoolhouse that was installed beneath the church in the 1870s. “People are happy to see someone bringing the place back to what it used to be,” she says.
From left: Waterford’s Bear Mountain Music Hall, photo courtesy of Bear Mountain Music Hall; Surry Village School, photographed by James Talala/Alamy
Eclectic programming was also key to the reimagining of the 1872 Surry Village School. In 2016, when resident Gete Thomson learned the town might tear down the vacant Greek Revival and Italianate two-story building where she attended kindergarten, she formed a preservation group to raise the $200,000 needed to restore it and purchase an adjacent lot, where they plan to put in a park. The schoolhouse reopened in 2020 with a sandwich board out front announcing concerts, art shows, bake sales, and bean suppers. After presenting her budget to the town, Thomson says, “I thought, what in the hell have I done? That’s a lot of brownies, yard sales, and begging. But the people wanted it, they have ownership of it, and they appreciate that it’s been saved.”
In Dover-Foxcroft, a group of residents raised nearly $1,800,000 (via donations and capital-funding grants) to gut Central Hall and rebuild it as a modern auditorium that resembles the old one, with the original stage, balcony, and staircases. Reopened in 2019, the building hosts more than 1,000 classes and events per year, from tai chi and contra dancing to art exhibits, concerts, proms, and weddings. “In a small town, initiatives like this have to come from volunteers who are looking ahead,” says Chris Maas, a director at the Dover-Foxcroft Historical Society who spearheaded the Central Hall renovation. “Then, you get the support of the community and you end up with something very different than just saving an old building.”
From our special “Welcome to Small Town, Maine” feature, highlighting some of the challenges and charms of small-town life and people who are passionate about their tight-knit communities. Find a few “Welcome to Small Town, Maine” stories here on the website, and pick up a copy of our March 2024 issue to read them all!
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Many Maine municipalities will open cooling centers this week with the National Weather Service issuing a variety of heat advisories covering the next few days.
The Maine DEP also issued an air quality alert for Wednesday with ground-level ozone expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
All of York County, interior Cumberland and Androscoggin counties, and the southern half of Oxford County will fall under an extreme heat warning from 11 a.m. Wednesday to 8 p.m. Friday.
The warning calls for “dangerously hot conditions” that could feature heat index values of up to 110 degrees, with overnight lows only expected to fall into the 70s, according to the weather service’s office in Gray.
The rest of the state — save northern Aroostook, Piscataquis and Somerset counties — falls under a heat advisory from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. However, the weather service has also placed much of the state under an extreme heat watch for Thursday.
Heat index values, which measure how hot it feels to the human body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature, are expected to reach up to 104 degrees during the heat advisory period, the weather service warns. They could reach 110 degrees Thursday, when the extreme heat watch is in effect.
Northern Oxford and Franklin counties, and central Somerset County, can expect a heat index value of up to 99 degrees Wednesday, according to the weather service.
The weather service advises people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms when possible, avoid extended periods in the sun and check up on relatives and neighbors. It also warns not to leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles, as “car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes.”
Cooling Centers
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has also issued an air quality alert from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Wednesday along the coast from Kittery to Acadia National Park. The agency warns that ground-level ozone concentrations are expected to reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive groups.
Ozone levels may reach “moderate levels” further inland, according to the Maine DEP, including in all of Androscoggin and Kennebec counties, as well as parts of Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Penobscot, Sagadahoc, Waldo, Washington and York counties.
Elevated ozone levels can pose a risk to children, older adults and people suffering from respiratory or heart diseases, according to the Maine DEP. Anyone exerting themselves outdoors may also experience health effects, which could include coughing, shortness of breath, throat irritation and mild chest pain.
Ozone levels were already climbing in southern New England on Tuesday, according to the Maine DEP, and winds are expected to bring those conditions to Maine on Wednesday.
The Maine DEP recommends that vulnerable populations avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep windows closed, and circulate indoor air with fans or air conditioners. Those with asthma are also advised to keep quick-relief medication handy.
Particle pollution levels are also expected to be moderate across the state on Wednesday due to wildfire smoke, the Maine DEP said in its announcement Tuesday. Wildfires in Colorado, which have claimed the lives of three firefighters, had burned nearly 90,000 acres as of Tuesday, according to the Denver Post.
Maine could face up to $50 million in penalties next year due to errors in its payments for federal food benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture find that Maine’s error rate last year was nearly 11%, the bulk of which were overpayments. That’s in line with the U.S. average. But starting in October of next year, states with error rates above 6% must cover a portion of the SNAP benefits.
Anna Korsen, executive director of Full Plates, Full Potential, said the overpayments aren’t fraud — they’re human error. She said this new cost-shifting policy enacted last year under the Trump administration further complicates the SNAP application process.
“Instead, we could make this program more accessible and more efficient,” Korsen said. “And that would reduce the number of errors and also ensure that Mainers who are eligible for SNAP have access to it.”
She’s urging Congress to delay or reverse the policy under the farm bill that’s currently under consideration.
Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services said it’s taking steps to reduce the error rate, including modernizing its systems and hiring an additional 40 eligibility specialists.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
PORTLAND (WGME) — The third annual Celebration of America 300 is set for Thursday night at Oxford Plains Speedway.
This race was a favorite of NASCAR star Kyle Busch, who tragically passed away back in May. He was just 41.
Now, a Maine-born driver who worked on Busch’s team is ready to take the 8 car into victory lane.
For the past five years, Windham native Derek Kneeland was Busch’s eye in the sky, working as a spotter for the cup star. Kneeland says his relationship with Busch was like a brotherhood.
“I was fortunate enough where I got to have a personal relationship with him,” Kneeland said. “He came up, and he ran several races with me in late models and stuff at Oxford and Lee Speedway, and we got to do a lot of cool things together.”
Kneeland says dealing with the sudden loss has been both painful and difficult.
“It’s still hard,” Kneeland said. “I’m having a hard time with it. The weekdays are the hardest. At the track is where I’m most comfortable.”
Kneeland will be at the track and behind the wheel Thursday night, competing in the Celebration of America 300, driving the number 8 car.
“You know, a few days after everything went down, his dad called me, and his dad is a man of very few words, and I said, ‘You know, I’m thinking about running the 8 or 51 as long as I have your guys’ blessing, I would like to do that.’ And he said, ‘Short track world knows him as 51, but the world knows him as 8,’” Kneeland said.
Kneeland says it will be an emotional race, but he’s confident he’ll have a special co-pilot leading the way.
“Hoping he’s going to be on my shoulder and give me the guiding way and but to win it for Kyle, I think that would put the stamp on it,” Kneeland said.
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