Millinocket, Maine

We didn't get our power back until about 1:00 am. We had very heavy winds with a mixture of heavy rains and sleet.

 

In July of 2006, I wrote a profile of Millinocket for All Maine Matters, a state-wide monthly that my wife and I published. You can find the all-text version here, although it is badly formatted, a problem that occurred when it was converted from PDF to text. The PDF version shows the paper much as it looked in print. Most of the photos that you can see throughout the issue were taken by me, and are from around Millinocket. Plus, I was running for state congress at the time, as a Republican, so you might also find one of my campaign ads. The Millinocket profile is on page eight.

 

That is a great story about the history of Millinocket, @Ken Anderson ! I enjoyed the pictures, too, especially the round house built by the man from the train company.
Was the Great Northern Paper Company in any way connected with the Great Northern Railroad ? I remember seeing that from the time I was little, and it used to have the emblem of the mountain goat on the side of all of the cars.
I think that they later may have merged with the Northern Pacific; but I am not sure about that part, and is now BNSF.
You look awesome in a suit ! Not at all like the unforgettable picture of the Creature From the Crawlspace......

I am pretty sure that my daughter-in-law told me that her parents lived in Millinocket when she was little. I would have to ask her again to be sure. Her family name was Stevenson, and her father was an Episcopalian minister.
I am guessing that it would have been sometime in the 1960's.

 

No, the Great Northern Railroad went from Minnesota to Washington. It was, however, the only privately funded, transcontinental railroad in US history. Unlike nearly every other railroad, Great Northern took no federal funds. It was built, in part, from the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, and was largely responsible for the European American settlement of the Dakotas. Later, it merged with several other railroads to form the Burlington Northern Railroad, the Northern Pacific being one of them.

Millinocket was once the second wealthiest town in Maine and had, I think, nine churches. We have seven now.

 

Very late last night, or early in the morning (after I had gone to bed anyhow), a train went through. We have a train track behind our house but we haven't had a train go by here since the mill closed a few years ago. People have been using the tracks as a walking trail, an ATV trail, and a snowmobile trail in the winter. There have been talks about what to do with it once the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad (which is in bankruptcy) formally abandoned it. Sometimes the land reverts to the landowners on each side of the track but, more often lately, they make it an official hiking trail, ATV trail, or snowmobile trail, which is what it's been used for lately. While I wouldn't mind having another little sliver of land, I don't really care. But it was strange that a train went through. Maybe they are dismantling some other mill along the way.

 

Yeah. the train woke her up too. While the tracks were in use, we didn't even notice the trains after the first few months because we got used to them. While the mill was in operation, there were trains coming and going all the time. I had always been under the impression that the tracks ended at the mill, a few blocks from our house, but it's possible that they continue on to somewhere else. It's also possible that they are salvaging metal or something from the mill, as several of the buildings are still up, although others have been demolished.

 

When I lived in Elsa, Texas, the train that went through there had been abandoned. The tracks had even been removed. Yet, the signal was still in operation and every now and then the railroad crossing lights would come on and the audible warning would sound. Everyone referred to that as a ghost train.

 

It's next to Edcouch, Texas. When I was a part-owner in an ambulance company, we were based in Edcouch, with stations in Elsa, La Villa, and Mercedes. Ed and Elsa Couch were brother and sister, I believe.

 

Many years ago, we lived in a little trailer that was beside the railroad track. Trains went by every day, and one came through around 2-3 in the morning. The railroad crossing was just down the road; so that late night train would always blow the whistle just before it came roaring past our house.
At first I would wake up when it came by at night; but soon, it jusst became part of the night sounds, and we slept right through it, whistle and all.
However, one night was different.
As the train came by, the headlight would swing from side to side, so the engineer could see on both sides of the track.
Just as the train started loudly blowing it's whistle, the headlight swang our direction at just the right second so that it glared right into the bedroom window, with the result being that I woke up in a panic, thinking that somehow that train was coming right through the bedroom window and into our bedroom, whistle blowing like crazy.
In an instant, it was gone, the light swinging back the other direction as the train roared past; but for a second or two, my half-asleep brain thought that it was about to be the end for us.

 

We're the second house from the corner, so we get the horn too.