"Memphis Jim" wrote in message
oups.com...
There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now. Now in
most of Maine, smaller farms are not economically productive (with the
exception of Aroostook County in the northeast of the state where
potato farms predominate). Over the past hundred years, much of
interior Maine that used to be farmland has reverted back to woods.

At the same time, over the last 40 years or so the population of the
state has consolidated toward coast, toward the southwest, and toward
urban areas, such that there are towns throughout Maine that are slowly
dimming and blinking out. Close to where I will be living there is one
town that no longer exists as a coporate entity, Centerville, and two
others that are trying to go in that direction, Whitneyville, and
Cooper (on Cathance Lake) Deorganization means lower taxes for these
towns on the brink. When deorganization succeeds, local control of the
community is given up. This ultimately furthers the trend toward
forested land.

Finally, much of the land in Maine is owned by international timber
companies. Currently they are managing much of the land for pulp
production, and letting forests regrow. If you didn't know better you
might assume much of the land is preserved.

The town where I am buying a house once had about 2500 people and was
an industrial center for cutting wood (thorough water power). Now the
mills are gone, along with the dams (thank goodness). If you didn't
know the history of the town it would be hard to imagine how industrial
the town was in the past.

That is what I meant.


What town is that where you are buying? It sounds like something east of
Lincoln...out by the lakes on the Airline. I grew up in Bradford, a small
town in central Maine that matches your description perfectly. Back at the
turn of the last century, the town had something like 2000 residents, a
mill, several town centers, a movie theatre, and lots of activity. When I
left in the late 70s, the entire Bradford/North Bradford/Bradford Center
region had only about 600 residents, and falling, and the woods (my regular
haunts) had many many overgrown foundations and reclaimed homesteads. You'd
know you were in one when you were walking in the woods and you stumbled
onto an apple tree grove, found rhubarb and raspberries growing in patches,
and a little poking around inevitably turned up an old collapsed foundation,
a well (don't fall in), and some rusted farm machinery tangled in the
grasses. Often, 50+ year old trees were growing from the foundation, and
there was little or no trace of the access road left. A little sleuthing
would show how the current woods road or skidder trail network used to be a
main road across the region, and how old anonymous sections of stone wall
that were deep in the forest were once roadside features, made by people
long ago whose memories had faded along with the landscape they created.
More than once, I'd find an old cemetary the did not appear on any maps, and
was barely recognizable.

I used to wonder what those folks would think if they saw the region today.
What was, to them, a small dirt access road out back became the main paved
highway through town. The old town center, with its church, lumberyard,
store and even railway station is now a lost ruin deep in the woods, miles
from any road or trail, with only 4-legged visitors.

--riverman