2025-2026 Kennebec, Androscoggin and Sandy River Valleys

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Volume 35 | Issue 2 | 2025/2026

Maine’s History Magazine

Kennebec, Androscoggin & Sandy River Valleys

Augusta’s Elizabeth Hoyt

Lewiston’s J.S. Sanborn Company

Pioneer in consumption economics

It began with a coffee bean

The Railroad Comes to Rangeley Narrow-gauge improved transportation

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Kennebec, Androscoggin & Sandy River Valleys

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Inside This Edition

Maine’s History Magazine 3

I t Makes No Never Mind James Nalley

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Clinton Hero Fought With The 20th Maine Infantry A “Maine at War” exclusive Brian Swartz

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Gardiner’s Laura Elizabeth Richards A prolific author of fiction and poetry James Nalley

13 Lewiston’s J.S. Sanborn Company It began with a coffee bean John Murray 18 Augusta’s Elizabeth Hoyt Pioneer in consumption economics James Nalley 24 Livermore’s Dorilus Morrison The Maine man responsible for growth of Minneapolis James Nalley 28 Farmington’s Isabel Greenwood Feminist inspires pride Rosemary Poulson 32 The Railroad Comes To Rangeley Narrow-gauge improved transportation Brian Swartz 37 The Search For The Vassalboro Arsonist Third time was a charm Brian Swartz

KENNEBEC, ANDROSCOGGIN & SANDY RIVER VALLEYS

Publisher Jim Burch Editor Dennis Burch Design & Layout Liana Merdan Field Representative Don Plante Contributing Writers John Murray James Nalley Rosemary Poulson Brian Swartz

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Front Cover Photo: W.B. Bailey Co. General Store in China. Item # LB2010.9.117901 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org All photos in Discover Maine’s Kennebec, Androscoggin & Sandy River Valleys issue show Maine as it used to be, and many are from local citizens who love this part of Maine.

Photos are also provided from our collaboration with the Maine Historical Society and the Penobscot Marine Museum.

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It Makes No Never Mind

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by James Nalley

midst the glowing lights, hectic schedules, crisp winter air, and quiet hope of the new year, December seems to carry both the weight of reflection and the promise of renewal. While typical activities might include watching a parade of lights, attending a tree-lighting ceremony, or taking a holiday stroll, some local residents take things a step further: Transforming their homes into dazzling displays of festive cheer. Although many light shows have come and gone in this month’s region, here are two standout locations that seem to outdo themselves year after year.

First, there is Monmouth Lights. Located at 74 Warren Road in Monmouth, owner Jason Mills decorates his house with more than 18,000 LED lights, all flickering in sync with holiday music.

Meanwhile, computer-controlled projectors beam festive images onto the windows, adding a layer of theatrical flair. According to the Sun Journal, “Every once in a while, you will see the ghostly image of a guitarist jamming along to the music of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on the front door.” Meanwhile, four moving spotlights (costing $1,000 apiece) cast beams that have been reportedly seen as far away as Lewiston, Auburn, and Poland. Some

people have even mistaken the lights for Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites, while others have claimed that UFOs were making regular appearances. Mills clarifies, “We do this show for the community and there is never a charge to come and see it.” Donations, if offered, go 100% to local youth STEM and arts programs. The show runs nightly from November 26 to January 1. Visitors can tune their car radios to 91.7 FM to experience the full musical performance synced with the light show.

Second, there is Dan’s Lights. Located at 664 Buckfield Road in Hebron, owner Dan Powell turns his two acres of woodland into a winter wonderland, illuminated by more than 62,000 LED lights. As DownEast magazine describes, “Colorful string-light trees and an 18-foot-tall string-light snowman named Olaf Senior scale his home, whose walls swim with laser-projected dots and snowflakes.” Meanwhile, “On one side of the yard, a glowing American flag is flanked by a 20-foottall conifer fashioned from lengths of red, white, and blue bulbs, and a ‘waterfall’ of blinking blue lights flowing into a glittering blue ‘pond.’ Across the road, string-light trees frame a brightwhite cross and a glowing piano inside a shining purple heart; a tribute to Pow-

ell’s late piano-teacher mother.” This display runs nightly from 4:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. until December 31. As Powell joked in a recent Facebook post, “I have always had a thing about not putting Santa in my display. But if anyone wants to buy me this set [Yukon Cornelius and the Abominable Snowman from Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer] from Lowes, I might consider bending my own rules.”

As many of you have come to expect, I usually close with a jest. However, for this month’s issue, I would like to end with a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, one that captures the cyclical nature of life, embracing both its joys and sorrows: What can be said in New Year rhymes, That’s not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings, We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed, We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, And that’s the burden of the year.

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Clinton Hero Fought With The 20th Maine Infantry

by Brian Swartz

D

A “Maine at War” exclusive

uring a brief lull as fighting engulfs the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment on Little Round Top during the movie Gettysburg, Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels) calls together his company commanders to explain how the regiment will wheel downhill and to the right to drive off the attacking Confederates.

Among the company commanders (or not) is Capt. Charles Wheeler Billings from Clinton. He commands Co. C, the next-to-the-last company on the regiment’s hard-hit left flank. There’s a reason why Billings might not be portrayed at this movie moment, but one thing’s for sure; he will be a hero before

sunset on July 2, 1863.

Born in Benton to Abijah and Rhonda Warner Billings on December 13, 1824, Billings had blue eyes, brown hair, and a light complexion. He married Ellen Hunter (another Clinton resident). They had at least three daughters, although daughter Alice died at age 4 in mid-November 1860, just 14 days before her baby sister, Elizabeth, was born.

Identified as “Charles A.,” Billings and Ellen and daughters Isadore (then 10) and Alice lived with Ellen’s parents, James, and Elizabeth, when a federal census-taker counted noses through their Clinton neighborhood on June

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15, 1860. James Hunter was a prosperous farmer with real estate worth a tidy $3,000. Besides his daughter and son-in-law and two grandchildren, his household included three farm laborers and a female servant.

The 1860 census described Charles Billings as a “millman,” but he had changed occupations to “lumberman” before enlisting as a second lieutenant in Co. A, 20th Maine Infantry on July 26, 1862. Standing 5-9, he had blue eyes, brown hair, and a light complexion. Now 37, he was capable and bright, a leader, all qualities that saw him commissioned as Co. C’s captain on March 26, 1863.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com Given his age and marital status, Billings did not have to enlist. If he had decided to sit out the war, Maine draft records strongly suggest that he would likely not be conscripted in summer 1863 or afterwards. He was just too plain old and too much married.

As the Army of the Potomac pursued Robert E. Lee in June 1863, Billings tramped alongside Co. C north through Virginia and Maryland and into Adams County, Pennsylvania. The regiment’s officer shortage — Capt.

Atherton Clark of Co. E was the acting lieutenant, Capt. Ellis Spear of Co. G the acting major — saw 1st Lt. Rufus Plummer transferred from Co. C to command Co. G. That left Billings with 2nd Lt. James H. Stanwood and both officers in turn relying on 1st Sgt. Isaac W. Estes. Like Billings, they exemplified the Mainers enlisting in that last great patriotic recruiting outburst in summer ’62.

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black eyes and hair and a dark complexion, the 37-year-old Stanwood joined Co. E as its first sergeant. He became Co. C’s second lieutenant on March 26, 1863, the same day Billings made captain.

Standing 5-9½, Estes was a 23-yearold married Bethel farmer when he joined the 5th Maine Infantry as a private in May 1861. He fought at First Manassas and got so sick later that year that the army discharged him. Sporting blue eyes, brown hair, and a light complexion, he went home, got better, and joined the 20th Maine on July 23, 1862. His experience and ability made him Co C’s top kick.

The 20th Maine reached Little Round Top in late afternoon on July 2, and Chamberlain deployed his companies. Alabamians and Texans attacked.

That tale has been often told.

The Little Round Top combat bloodied Co. C. A Confederate shot and mortally wounded Billings. Estes fell

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mortally wounded; he died on July 14.

Stanwood suffered a non-debilitating leg wood, and Sgt. Charles A. Knapp and Corp. Vincent W. Pinhorn were wounded. So were 13 privates, four of them mortally.

Charles Wheeler Billings died of his wounds on July 15. His embalmed body was shipped home by rail, and his funeral took place on Wednesday, July 22. “The church in which the funeral services were held could accommodate but a small portion of the people who came to testify their appreciation of this brave soldier, and to sympathize with his bereaved relatives,” a Waterville newspaper reported.

A Clinton minister delivered “a brief sermon characterized by bold and high-toned patriotism.” Someone read a letter written by a U.S. Christian Commission volunteer apparently with Billings in his final hours. The letter indicated he “had died as he lived, a patriot and a Christian.” (cont. on page 6)

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(cont. from page 5) Members representing two Masonic lodges “performed the usual burial services” after the flag-draped casket was carried to the Riverview Cemetery, “a beautiful spot near the village.” Marching with the entourage was the West Waterville Band, providing “a solemn dirge” as “the measured toll of the [church] bell” sounded across Clinton.

“The casket, prized for the precious jewel it once held, was laid in its last resting place,” the newspaper noted.

Tragedy would soon stalk the grieving Ellen Billings and her two surviving daughters. Three-year-old “Lizzie” died at age 3 on December 7, 1863 and was buried beside her father and her sister Alice. Isadore later married Davis True Timberlake of Livermore and bore him at least four children (Charles Billings’ only grandchildren).

Ellen Hunter Billings did not remarry. She died in Lancaster, New Hampshire in early April 1924.

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Gardiner’s Laura Elizabeth Richards A prolific author of fiction and poetry

by James Nalley

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mong the numerous women writers of the early to mid-20th century, there was one prolific writer who was raised in a well-to-do family and began writing at the age of 10. She would eventually publish more than 90 books over her lifetime, including the children’s book Captain January (1890), which sold more than three million copies. However, she has two important distinctions. First, she was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in the biography category. Second, she was the first prominent American writer of nonsense verse for children. In this regard, phrases such as “Once there was an elephant, who tried to use the telephant” and “A wizzy wiz-

Laura Elizabeth Richards, ca. 1902

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Laura Elizabeth Howe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 27, 1850. She had “big shoes to fill,” considering that her father was Samuel Howe, a well-known abolitionist and founder of the Perkins Institutions and Massachusetts School for the Blind, and her mother was Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the popular patriotic song during the U.S. Civil War. According to her autobiography Stepping Westward (1932), “Samuel’s star pupil, and Laura’s namesake, was Laura Bridgman, a child who had been left blind and deaf after a bout with scarlet (cont. on page 8)

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(cont. from page 7) fever at the age of two. When Bridgman was seven, Samuel brought her to Perkins, where she became the first blind and deaf person to learn language and ‘finger spell.’” Interestingly, another Perkins student, Anne Sullivan, later taught Helen Keller.

Naturally, Laura was introduced at an early age to language, the fine arts, and a wide range of people and experiences. As she explained in Stepping Westward, “When we gathered delightedly around the piano…we soon began to sing with mother. German songs, many of them brought back from Heidelberg by Uncle Sam Ward…sparkling French songs whose gayety was enchanting…Italian songs that flowed like water under moonlight; to say nothing of the English and Scottish ballads.” She continued, “We never knew that we were studying French, German, and Italian, and we were acquiring a vocabulary.”

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Meanwhile, she was surrounded by books, especially fairy tales and adventure stories written by Thomas Mayne Reid (the Irish-American novelist who wrote about the headless horseman).

She also loved English poetry, especially those written by Elizabeth Browning, Alfred Tennyson, and Percy Shelley. In fact, she once stated that “I would rather read poetry than eat my dinner any day. It has been so all my life.”

Her education was further enhanced by a long family trip to Europe in 1867, which included visits to London, Antwerp, Athens, Venice, and Rome. Upon her return, she became engaged to architect and industrialist Henry Richards, who had been living next door to the Howe family for several years.

The couple were married in 1871, after which they settled in Gardiner, Maine, when Henry accepted a management position at his family’s paper mill. Over the next decade, the couple raised three

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children. In this regard, Laura stated that she used her own children for inspiration when writing her early children’s poems. She eventually compiled them into the book called Five Little Mice in a Mouse Trap (1880). The following is one of her most well-known poems and one that made her the first prominent American writer of nonsense verse for children: Once there was an elephant, Who tried to use the telephantNo! No! I mean an elephone Who tried to the telephone(Dear me! I am not certain quite That even now I’ve got it right.)

Howe’er it was, he got his trunk Entangled in the telphunk; The more he tried to get it free, The louder buzzed the telephee(I fear I’d better drop the song Of elephop and telephong!)

Other titles quickly followed, and Laura soon specialized in writing sto(cont. on page 10)

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(cont. from page 8) ries for girls, such as Captain January, which not only sold three million copies, but was also later adapted in the 1936 film starring Shirley Temple. According to the Gardiner Public Library, “She wrote more than 90 works, mostly in the fields of children’s literature and biography, at the family’s celebrated residence, the Yellow House.” Meanwhile, inspired by her parents, she “brought about social reforms and civic improvements in Gardiner, including the introduction of safe drinking water, the public health nurse, the hospital, the Red Cross, a new high school, and numerous service organizations, including the Gardiner Public Library.”

In 1917, Laura earned the additional distinction of being the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in the biography category for Julia Ward Howe, 18191910 (1915), which she co-authored with her sister Maud Howe Elliott. Later in her life, her literary output nev-

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Laura Elizabeth Richards home in Gardiner.

er waned and she continued to publish stories and books of verse for children on a regular basis well into her 80s.

As for more serious poetry, Where Helen Sits is a prime example: Where Helen sits, the darkness is so deep, No golden sunbeam strikes athwart the gloom; No mother’s smile, no glance of loving eyes, Lightens the shadow of that lonely room.

Yet the clear whiteness of her radi ant soul Decks the dim walls, like angel vest ments shed.

The lovely light of holy innocence Shines like a halo round her bended head, Where Helen sits.

Laura’s last work, What Shall the Children Read, was published in 1939.

She died on January 14, 1943, at her home in Gardiner, 44 days before her 93rd birthday. She was buried in a family grave at Christ Church Cemetery in Gardiner. As for her legacy, aside from her accolades in the writing field, a prekindergarten-to-fifth-grade elementary school in Gardiner bears her name and her home, the Laura E. Richards House (the “Yellow House”), is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Moreover, her personal papers, the “Yellow House Papers,” are owned by the Gardiner Library Association.

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Postcard image of Main Street in Norway, ca. 1940. Item # 26135 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Lewiston’s J.S. Sanborn Company

by John Murray

It began with a coffee bean

I

n the mid-1800s, Maine would become the starting point for a brand of coffee which would ultimately become famous throughout the country. Leading this coffee innovation was Maine resident James Solomon Sanborn.

James Solomon Sanborn was born on March 29. 1835 in the town of Wales. He was the son of Ann Crossman Daly who married Henry Sanborn.

Educated in Maine, James was a bright man who developed a good business sense and instinct.

Although coffee initially arrived in the region in the 1600s, the hot drink of choice during that time was tea. It would not be until 1773 when tea began

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its decline as a favored drink. Famous in history was an event that occurred on the evening of December 16, 1773, when dozens of disguised men staged a nighttime raid on three shipping vessels docked in Boston Harbor. During this

event to protest the British Parliament’s tax on tea sold in the colonies, 342 cases of tea was taken from the East India Company ships and then dumped into the Boston Harbor.

Driven by the rising political sentiment directed towards the British, tea was boycotted and coffee would soon become the preferred drink of the colonists. With entrepreneurial innovation sparked by a growing desire for quality coffee, James Solomon Sanborn recognized this blossoming coffee market and started a business.

J.S. Sanborn Company was created and was situated on Lisbon Street in downtown Lewiston. This company imported and marketed a combination (cont. on page 14)

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(cont. from page 13) of coffee, tea and spices. Sanborn recognized the importance of a quality and consistent product for consumers, and this became the business model for his company.

Sanborn was always thinking about the future. One day while he was studying a coffee bean that he held in his hand, he concluded that coffee would establish a permanent place in the consumer market as a favorite beverage. After importing good quality coffee beans, coffee was roasted and then blended to create unique proprietary house blends. What would start as a small business before 1870 quickly grew and prospered into a well-known company that supplied numerous retailers throughout Maine.

With a consistent flavor that was achieved through proper coffee bean roasting production and freshness, Sanborn’s coffee was packaged in Lewiston and rapidly became a favored drink among a growing number of coffee

drinkers in Maine. Even though business was good supplying Maine’s coffee drinkers with a desired product, Sanborn knew that remaining a local company would limit future growth in the coffee market.

A meeting with Caleb Chase would soon redirect the direction of Sanborn’s company. At the time of the meeting, Caleb Chase owned and operated a coffee roasting business in Boston.

Established in 1864, Chase’s business was doing brisk sales, but like Sanborn, Chase recognized that a partnership with the right person would be beneficial for growth. During this time, Boston was established as a major commercial center due to its access to more substantial distribution networks that included efficient port facilities.

Along with these factors, Boston had a substantially larger population of urban consumers that desired a good cup of coffee.

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com strong merits that each of the individual men possessed. At the time, Chase was using the most advanced methods for roasting coffee which was accomplished by a cylindrical roasting drum placed over a consistent source of heat.

By trial and error, Chase had learned that a better roast was accomplished by preheating the drum to a desired target temperature before the green coffee beans were inserted into the drum.

Time was another important aspect of coffee bean roasting. With the proper heat and roasting time, moisture evaporated from the coffee beans gradually and then a Maillard reaction occurred within the coffee bean. In this chemical reaction, the amino acids and sugars in the roasting coffee beans react, which would create the level of browning and complex flavors produced by the coffee bean.

In this timed event, the first stage to be achieved in the roasting process was

Illustration of the Chase & Sanborn building at 87 Broad Street in Boston, MA.

called “first crack.” In this initial stage of roasting, the coffee bean expands in size and generates an audible crack.

This initial stage would create a coffee bean that was light roasted and had a smoother flavor. If the coffee beans were roasted for a longer amount of determined time, the coffee beans would achieve what was known as “second crack.” In this second roasting stage, the coffee beans would create a dark roast level that had a stronger, robust flavor.

Along with Chase’s expertise in roasting coffee beans, Sanborn possessed marketing savvy, and he could readily establish more sales revenue with the larger market that Boston provided. With access to more consumers plus a highly function shipping distribution system, Sanborn realized that teaming up with Chase in Boston would be a highly strategic partnership.

With thoughts and ambitions directed (cont. on page 16)

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(cont. from page 15) towards a prosperous future, Sanborn shuttered his business operation in Lewiston and moved to Boston.

In 1874, Chase and Sanborn partnered together and co-founded the company called Chase & Sanborn.

The company was headquartered on 87 Broad Street in Boston. This building was situated in a central location which assisted with providing the image of a prominent company that would soon become one of the most well-known

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coffee companies in the United States.

The two men masterminded the concept of packing roasted coffee beans in sealed tin containers. By using these durable airtight containers, both freshness and flavor of the roasted coffee beans was dramatically extended. This packaging innovation permitted the company to reach a nationwide coffee drinking audience.

Popularity surged in 1893 when the company supplied all the coffee for the Chicago World’s Fair. This fair was visited by more than a million people.

By the end of the 1800s, Chase & Sanborn became the first brand of coffee which was distributed on a nationwide scale.

Chase & Sanborn was the first coffee company to print a freshness date on every tin of coffee. By doing so, quality control was confirmed, and this added significantly to consumer trust in the product. This product dating for freshness was a new concept, and it

greatly increased sales revenue. With this innovation, Chase & Sanborn firmly achieved permanent consumer recognition.

In later years, rapid sales growth prompted a company expansion into a

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com larger facility and headquarters located in Chicago. This expansion was undertaken in 1922. By the 1930s, a radio variety show was created by the company that was called the Chase and Sanborn Hour. This radio show became very popular and seamlessly blended advertising with music, celebrity guests and comedy.

Even though James Sanborn moved away from Maine to start and expand the Chase & Sanborn company, he never lost his profound love of Maine.

Sanborn would return frequently to visit Maine and would establish Elmwood Farm in 1886 which was in nearby Poland. This farm was a 250-acre property that raised and sold highbred horses.

In later years, the property was expanded to 500 acres.

James Solomon Sanborn passed away in 1903, leaving a legacy of coffee history and innovation with Maine origins.

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Augusta’s Elizabeth Hoyt

by James Nalley

Pioneer in consumption economics

I

n the early 20th century, when most economists focused on production and markets, an Augusta-born woman turned her attention to the subtle forces that shape how people actually spend their money; that is, how tastes, habits, and social pressures drive demand just as powerfully as wages or prices.

Over time, she illuminated the hidden psychology behind household budgets, demonstrating that consumption was not merely the endpoint of economic activity, but a dynamic force capable of influencing policy and shaping economic growth. Her insights helped lay the groundwork for consumption economics, making her one of the first to show that understanding why we buy is as

Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt (courtesy of the Iowa State University archives)

important as knowing how we produce.

Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt was born on January 27, 1893, in Augusta. Her mother died when Elizabeth was only 10 years old, which, according to the Iowa State Archives, “was a formative loss that heightened her awareness of family economics and social welfare concerns.” Hoyt later attended the Latin School for Girls in Boston, one of the earliest U.S. preparatory schools for young women, before earning her Bachelor of Arts from Boston College in 1913.

Before pursuing her graduate studies, Hoyt briefly worked as a stenographer for the YMCA and unsuccessfully applied for a position with immigration

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com services, both early experiences that exposed her to the realities of economic inequality and institutional discrimination. From 1915 to 1916, she studied classics at Wellesley College, but her interests soon shifted toward economics. She earned a master’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1924, followed by a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1925. As noted in the article “Maine Women Writers Collection” by the University of New England Library, “Her dissertation, published the following year as Primitive Trade: Its Psychology and Economics, analyzed how trade operated in what she called ‘primitive’ economies, with a focus on the psychology of trust, customs, and social norms.” This early work foreshadowed the later emergence of economic anthropology and behavioral economics.

Between 1917 and 1921, Hoyt worked at the National Industrial Con-

U.S. Consumer Price Index from the 1950s to present ference Board in New York, conducting cost-of-living studies. According to the Iowa State Archives, “Her meticulous data collection, which covered the prices of food, rent, clothing, and transportation, was an important forerunner of what later became the U.S. Consumer Price Index.” She went on to teach at Wellesley College (1921–1923) before

joining Iowa State College in 1925 as an associate professor of economics. At that time, she was the only woman on the economics faculty, which was a notable achievement given the significant barriers that women faced in academia.

In 1927, she was promoted to full professor and remained at Iowa State until her retirement in 1963. (cont. on page 20)

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(cont. from page 19) One of the most dramatic and formative episodes of Hoyt’s life occurred in 1928, when she embarked on a world tour during a sabbatical.

Specifically, she crossed the Pacific to Japan, traveled through Korea, and spent a month in Peking (now Beijing) during a devastating famine. There, she witnessed scenes of extreme human suffering: Destitute peasants lying in the streets and carts collecting dead bodies each night. Hoyt herself lost 20 pounds during the trip and contracted tuberculosis, an illness she eventually overcame with treatment in Ames, Iowa. She later described the journey as “the most important experience of my life,” explaining that “it deepened her commitment to understanding the economic and human dimensions of poverty and development.” This direct confrontation with suffering gave a renewed sense of urgency to her subsequent research on living standards and

the economic choices of nations.

Hoyt’s scholarship also played a foundational role in establishing consumption economics as a distinct field.

In The Consumption of Wealth (1928) and Consumption in Our Society (1938), she examined how households allocate resources and how “wants” are shaped by culture, norms, and social institutions. Unlike classical economists, who mainly viewed consumption as a function of prices and income, Hoyt argued that economic behavior could not be fully understood without considering psychological and cultural influences. As noted in Elizabeth Parson’s article, “Pioneering Consumer Economist: Elizabeth Ellis Hoyt” (2013), “Her analysis showed that non-market factors — family traditions, advertising, social expectations — strongly influence patterns of demand and the evolution of consumer preferences.”

Her early work on cost-of-living

measurements also left a lasting impact.

As noted earlier, by refining methods to track price changes and household budgets, Hoyt helped lay the foundation for today’s U.S. Consumer Price Index and for modern policy tools used in wage negotiations, inflation targeting, and welfare analysis. Importantly, her approach combined empirical rigor with an understanding that economic well-being depends on more than income; that is, it requires assessing how prices affect actual living standards.

Hoyt’s interests were also global.

In the early 1950s, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to study social and economic change in East Africa, with a focus on Uganda. In 1957, she secured a Ford Foundation grant to investigate how workers in Central America and the Caribbean responded to employer policies. These studies highlighted the diversity of economic behavior and underscored the importance of incor-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com porating cultural context into economic analysis. Additionally, she organized efforts to provide English-language library materials to parts of sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting her belief that economic development not only requires financial investment, but also intellectual and educational resources.

During her career, Hoyt published five books: Primitive Trade: Its Psychology and Economics (1926; reissued in 1968 as an “economics classic”), The Consumption of Wealth, Consumption in Our Society (1938), Income in Our Society (1969), and Choice and Destiny of Nations (1969). The last of these reflected her mature insights into the economic futures of nations, especially those facing poverty and underdevelopment. Throughout her work, Hoyt combined clear theoretical arguments with vivid empirical observations, making her an early economist who successfully bridged the gap between abstract

models and real-world issues.

Despite her accomplishments, Hoyt was largely overlooked in many standard histories of economic theory. Only in more recent years has her role as a pioneering figure in consumption economics, alongside contemporaries such as Hazel Kyrk (1886–1957), begun to receive scholarly attention. Although she retired in 1963, Hoyt continued to write and remained active in international education and economic development causes. She died on November 22, 1980, in Gleneden Beach, Oregon, and was buried at Ocean Hill Cemetery in Bristol, Maine.

As for her legacy, the University of New England Library stated, “In her will, she established the Elizabeth E. Hoyt Fellowship Fund at Iowa State University to support seminars and scholarship, ensuring that her commitment to research and teaching would continue.” Among other honors, she re-

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ceived the Radcliffe Graduate Society Medal in 1964 and a Faculty Citation from Iowa State in 1969. Her inclusion in the first edition of Who’s Who in American Women and the naming of a South African library in her honor further recognized her contributions as both a scholar and a champion of global education. Above all, Hoyt’s life reminds us that economics is not merely about numbers; it is also about understanding the human conditions that shape economic behaviors and applying this understanding to improve the well-being of people around the world.

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Livermore’s Dorilus Morrison The Maine man responsible for growth of Minneapolis

by James Nalley

I

n 1832, an 18-year-old Livermore-born man began working in the mercantile business. Diligently, he managed to save approximately $20,000 (equaling $820,000 in today’s standards). Then, with his talent for making wise investment choices (and some luck), he moved to Minnesota, where he established a company in the lumber industry. Over time, he not only became Mayor of Minneapolis, but also built a streetcar line for the city: Twin City Rapid Transit (the predecessor of the current Metro Transit system).

Upon his death, the Minneapolis Journal called him, “One of the dozen men who made Minneapolis the metropolis

Dorilus Morrison in 1893

of the Northwest.”

Dorilus Morrison was born on December 27, 1814, in Livermore. Although he attended public schools in the area, he chose not to go to college and began working for William Britan, as a

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clerk in the mercantile business. With hard work and persistence, he not only saved a significant amount of money, but also worked his way up to become a partner. In 1842, he moved to Bangor to stake his claim in the region’s lumber industry, becoming a merchant and timber dealer.

Approximately 20 years after entering the lumber business, Morrison visited Minnesota, which had yet to achieve statehood. Upon arriving to this new territory in 1854, he was so impressed with its potential that he sold his business in Maine and moved with his wife and children to the town of St. Anthony (currently a first-ring suburb of Min-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com neapolis). There, he invested in a large tract of pinelands and supplied lumber to local sawmills. However, with a penchant for increasing his profits, he acquired his own sawmill and lumber yard (D. Morrison and Co.) with fellow Mainer William Washburn (a businessman who eventually served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate). According to the article “The Strangest Names in American Political History” (2014) by Andy Osterdahl, “Within a short amount of time, Morrison had staked a claim as one of the largest lumber dealers in the state, owning approximately 11,000 acres of Minnesota’s valuable white pine.”

As stated in the book History of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota (1893)

by Isaac Atwater, “Morrison then became a significant investor in the Minneapolis Mill Company (the precursor of the well-known General Mills company). He bought up all the shares that (cont. on page 26)

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(cont. from page 25) other investors divested.” Today, General Mills, Inc. is a multinational manufacturer of branded consumer foods, with a revenue of approximately $19 billion.

In 1863, like many other wealthy businessmen, Morrison entered politics and was elected to represent the 5th district in the Minnesota State Senate.

He served from 1864 to 1865. However, when the city of Minneapolis was formally incorporated in 1867, he was elected as its first mayor. Although he was re-elected to a second term in 1869, he ran unsuccessfully for a third term in 1872, losing to Eugene Wilson by 674 votes.

During that time, Morrison also served as the first president of the Minneapolis School Board. He also supported the initial construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad, along with William Washburn and other influential businessmen such as George Brackett

(the 6th Mayor of Minneapolis) and William King (U.S. Congressman). As stated by Osterdahl, “Between 1870 and 1874, the construction firm laid 240 miles of track from Duluth, Minnesota, to Fargo, North Dakota. This consortium later took another contract, which laid a further 200 miles of track from Fargo to Bismarck, North Dakota, concluding work in 1874.”

Determined to make his mark on the city of Minneapolis, Morrison began building rails for a downtown streetcar line. He immediately formed a partnership with William King and other local businessmen to create the Minneapolis Street Railway. However, according to the book Transit and the Twins (1958)

by Stephen Kieffer, “The lines did not go very far, and the railway was useless for a time. There are some indications that a streetcar was purchased but never used, collecting dust for several years.”

Then, in 1875, the reformed Min-

neapolis Street Railway made a deal with the Minneapolis City Council in which the company would have exclusive access to street rails for 50 years if they could be up and running in four months. With these terms in mind, they recruited real-estate mogul Thomas Lowry, who brought online a route between downtown Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as the University of Minnesota). These streetcars became extremely popular because they rode on smooth rails, while many of the streets were made of either dirt or cobblestone. By 1890, Minneapolis and St. Paul were connected with a railway along University Avenue. This was followed by a merger of the two city systems, i.e., the St. Paul City Railway Co. and the Minneapolis Street Railway, to form Twin City Rapid Transit.

By the mid-1890s, Morrison had largely retired from public life, al-

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com though he made periodic visits to his business office in downtown Minneapolis. On June 26, 1897, Morrison died at his home, the “Villa Rosa,” in Minneapolis. He was 82 years of age. He was subsequently buried under a large obelisk at Lakewood Cemetery (which he also helped found) in Minneapolis.

Upon his death, the Minneapolis Journal called Morrison, “One of the dozen men who made Minneapolis the metropolis of the Northwest and the pride of its 200,000 people. He was a man of nerve in business, clear-headed and cool always, and as bold as a lion, both physically and mentally.” Today, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Mia) and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) are located on the land where Morrison’s house once stood. This block of land, which also holds the Children’s Theater and Target Park, is still officially known as Dorilus Morrison Park.

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Farmington’s Isabel Greenwood

by Rosemary Poulson

M

Feminist inspires pride

ost everyone in Franklin County has heard of Chester Greenwood, the Farmington native who invented the earmuff. His fame and glory are publicized widely every winter when Farmington holds its annual celebration.

A feminist might question whether or not any distaff members of the Greenwood family ever attained prominence and the answer would be a very definite yes. Isabel W. Greenwood, the wife of Chester Greenwood, was the heart and soul of the Farmington Suffrage Club, striving mightily to obtain the right to vote for women.

According to a research paper written by Lynn Lister of Pittsford, Vermont while she was a student at the Univer-

sity of Maine at Farmington in 1991, Isabel Greenwood began her work in the Suffrage Movement by hosting a meeting on February 2, 1906 with Mrs. Fannie J. Fernald, the president of the Maine State Association of Equal Suffrage, as speaker. The meeting was held at the home of Mrs. L.G. Butler on Main Street in Farmington, and during the course of the day, Belle organized a club that would be affiliated with the Suffrage Movement and the National Association.

The list of ladies named as members reads like a roster of the Franklin County history books. Besides Greenwood, Fernald and Butler, we find Gilman, Fairbanks, Wyman, Warren, Prescott, Purrington, Keyes, and Jordan, all fam-

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From its beginnings in 1906, Belle served as president of the club, guest speaker to other organizations, and writer of definitive articles on the movement. She and her forty-five colleagues in Farmington worked diligently for the passage of the nineteenth Amendment.

In 1917 a referendum for women’s suffrage was passed by both houses of the Maine State Legislature and was sent to the people for a vote. Regrettably, on the first Monday of September, the people rejected the referendum by voting it down.

The Maine suffragettes decided that the cause of their defeat was probably the fact the United States entered World

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com War I that year. News of battles and of fighting fathers, husbands and brothers so distracted the women of Maine that they temporarily neglected to pursue the goal of the vote.

Whatever the reason, Isabel and her doughty band of women continued to speak and write and organize and the Federal Government passed the Amendment in 1920. On September 16, 1920 the club voted to change the name of their organization from the Auxiliary of Maine Woman’s Suffrage Association to the Auxiliary of Maine League of Women Voters, an organization still very active in Central Maine.

Picture the town of Farmington in 1906. Think of the rural, small-town mentalities which would be prevalent in such a town. What kind of a woman could stand up to the pressure of the anti-suffrage movement, could counter the arguments of prominent men in the County, would refuse to be discouraged

over a period of fourteen years, and would persist in her convictions.

According to Lister’s paper, Sarah Isabel Whittier was born to Phineas P. and Sarah Maddox Whittier on October 13, 1862. Isabel, as she was called, grew up in the village of Chesterville and was educated in Farmington schools. She married Chester Greenwood in 1884.

The list of her accomplishments includes raising four children, becoming a charter member and treasurer of the Farmington Home for Aged People’s Association, an organization that still provides gracious housing for Farmington’s elderly on Main Street. She was a charter member of the Roderick-Crosby Post, American Legion Auxiliary, which has its headquarters today on High Street. She was a member of the Farmington Monday Club and the Women’s Alliance of the Unitarian Church. A picture printed on the cov-

-------- 645-3088 --------

er of Lister’s paper shows Isabel to be fair-haired with a strongly ridged brow, a straight nose, large serious eyes, firm lips, and a well-defined jaw. Obviously an attractive, almost delicate profile, she nevertheless looks like a strong and determined woman.

Isabel ran her family and her household along strict lines, according to the reports of relatives which Lister has included in her paper. She didn’t believe in doctors and often used herbs and home remedies for family illnesses. She studied books on nutrition and would not allow her children or grandchildren to eat a lot of sugar or fatty foods. A grandchild, “Sully” Greenwood, recalls that she “was the ruler of the household. She never ate breakfast because she said it wasn’t good to eat breakfast.” She never drank coffee. Only her father was allowed to smoke and then it was in the living room near the fireplace. Liquor was never allowed and (cont. on page 30)

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(cont. from page 29) good manners were always observed.

Sully Greenwood told Lister that Belle ruled the home. She let Chester rule the business.

A woman with that kind of determination, who had been born during the Civil War and grown up during the Reconstruction Period, knew something about change. She kept herself informed of the earliest Suffrage efforts, including the famous Seneca Falls Convention, held in 1848 and led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott.

While Isabel was recognized as a prime mover in the Suffrage Movement in Western Maine, she acknowledged her indebtedness to another Farmington woman who preceded her in the fight for women’s rights. In 1884 Sarah N. Mace petitioned the Maine State Legislature for rights in property, which were granted. Due to her efforts, Maine was the first state in the Union to grant

Main Street in West Farmington. Item # LB2007.1.103036 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

women the privilege of holding their own property.

Truly, Farmington, Franklin County, and Central Maine have every incentive to be proud of these women who

assumed leadership roles in guaranteeing their less ambitious or at least, less articulate sisters the rights they enjoy today.

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Wire suspension bridge ove the Carrabassett River, ca. 1955. Item # LB2010.9.120482 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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The Railroad Comes To Rangeley Narrow-gauge improved transportation

by Brian Swartz

T

rees brought a railroad north from Phillips in 1890. Outdoor recreationists brought that same railroad to Rangeley the next year.

The forests stretching across central Franklin County and north to the Quebec border contained almost incalculable virgin timber, its highest value when sold as lumber, shingles, and other forest products. But with winter snow and spring thaws shutting down local roads, lumber and other wood products could not be moved to market for several months each year. A railroad could run year-round, however.

And then there was Rangeley, an outdoor-recreation paradise attracting fishermen and hunters in greater num-

bers each year. Sporting camps served these outdoor recreationists. Many wealthy people entered with the fishing, and the region’s beauty bought or built camps in the Rangeley Lakes Region. Commerce developed in Rangeley to support economic growth.

Stages and wagons took sportsmen (and the supplies to sustain them) to Rangeley over the rough roads from Madrid. Was there a quicker and smoother way to move people and freight to the Rangeley Lakes Region?

Yes: by railroad.

The Maine Central Railroad had already reached Farmington on a standard-gauge track. Construction- and materials-related costs made extending

a similar track north of Farmington unfeasible. However, with its two-footwide track, a narrow-gauge railroad could be built for less cost; its locomotives and cars would cost less than standard-gauge equipment, too.

Workers started constructing the narrow-gauge Sandy River Railroad from Farmington to Strong and Phillips in 1879. Wood products manufactured in those towns’ mills could now ship south over the Maine Central — and sportsmen and -women could detrain in Phillips and take a shorter stage ride to Rangeley than previously available from Farmington.

Early experience with the 18-mile Sandy River Railroad indicated that it

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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com could attract business in such a rural area. Strong became a junction as the two-footer Franklin & Megantic Railroad opened from there to Kingfield in 1883. Another narrow-gauge railroad, the Kingfield & Dead River, soon ran from Kingfield north along the Carrabassett River to Bigelow. Part of that railroad’s bed alongside the river is now used as a rail trail.

What about connecting Phillips to Rangeley by railroad? In those days, supporters sold shares to finance a new railroad. The Redington Lumber Company, which owned extensive forests in Redington Township bordering Madrid to the south, purchased 375 shares of the 400 shares sold to finance the Phillips & Rangeley Railroad.

Beginning with where the Sandy River Railroad ended in Phillips, workers started building the new railroad toward Redington Township. The route initially followed the Sandy River, then

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turned north into Madrid. Roadbed construction essentially paralleled Orbeton Stream, reached Redington, and moved west toward Rangeley. An inaugural train pulled into Redington in October 1890. The Phillips & Rangeley RR started regular service to Redington and its sawmill in February 1891. The mill was located at Milepost 16.2.

Warmer weather saw the railroad reach Rangeley in early June and commence regular service from that town to Phillips and then via the Sandy River Railroad to Farmington on July 1. The P & R’s track ended at the Rangeley Lake House at Milepost 28.6. Sportsmen need only step down from the train and walk a short distance to meet their guides, catch a steamboat to a destination elsewhere on Rangeley Lake, or stay at the Lake House or other Rangeley accommodations.

The railroad “brought an increased tourist trade to the Rangeley area,”

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states the modern Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Railroad’s website. In season, “the ‘Rangeley Express’ with its three round trips daily from Farmington to Rangeley, carried high-class city folk for weeks of relaxation” in the region.

Named the Calvin Putnam, the railroad’s first locomotive was an 18-ton giant (by narrow-gauge standards) 0-4-4T locomotive built by the wellknown Portland Company. The Pennsylvania-based Baldwin Locomotive Works provided most future locomotives purchased by the railroad, which also bought rolling stock to move forest products, freight, and passengers along its route.

The Phillips & Rangeley faced ongoing challenges, with winter weather and the unforgiving Franklin County terrain presenting the greatest problems. According to the SR & RL’s website, the P &R Railroad “had many (cont. on page 34)

Kennebec, Androscoggin & Sandy River Valleys

34

(cont. from page 33) long, steep grades and sharp curves.”

Drifting snow could derail a train, and the railroad was always financially dependent on the various mills along its tracks.

Financial difficulties led to the P & R being merged with the Sandy River Railroad in 1908. The Maine Central purchased the “new” railroad three years later and ran it as the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes RR until it closed in the mid-1930s.

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Street view in Jackman. Item # LB2007.1.107183 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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Union Church in Greenville. Item # LB2010.9.117999 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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The Search For The Vassalboro Arsonist

by Brian Swartz

A

Third time was a charm

rson and murder stalked the Oak Grove School in Vassalboro in late summer 1887 — and finger-pointing affected the town itself.

Quakers moving to Vassalboro from New York had opened the Oak Grove Seminary in 1844. It then became a boys’ school circa 1850. By the 1880s the school was attracting students (never enough to ease the financial pressures); then “the school was burned a few years ago (apparently by accident), a Maine newspaper reported in early September 1887.

“The present buildings were completed last year,” the paper observed.

Then disaster struck when the seminary building “burned to the ground” on Thursday, September 1. A 16-yearold student, identified as “a son of Stephen Jones,” died in the fire, considered possibly suspicious in nature.

Wooden buildings often burned in Maine, the dead youth went into his grave, and classes continued at Oak Grove School. Then the gymnasium burned flat in mid-month; authorities searched the debris and determined the latest “fire was incendiary” in nature.

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Fearing an arsonist in their midst, Vassalboro residents helped raise $2,000 to hire a Portland investigator, a “Detective True.” He arrived “at the scene of the [gymnasium] burning” late day on Sunday, September 18, and authorities launched “a fire inquest” and impaneled a jury to hear the evidence.

Authorities initially arrested a man “seen by some men near some bushes, near the building, just before the fire.”

Claiming he had arrived in Waterville a week earlier from Hope, Rhode Island, he allegedly had worked “in the Lockwood mills” in Waterville until Satur(cont. on page 38)

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(cont. from page 37) day night. September 17.

Then he and three companions walked toward Augusta on the River Road to “get work,” but the other three men abandoned the journey. The suspect walked on alone — right toward the Oak Grove School.

What the man — described as a “tramp” — was doing in bushes not far from the building that burned, no one wrote down. A telegram sent to Hope confirmed his story. Authorities so anxious to pin the gymnasium fire on the suspect released him instead, and he passed nameless into history.

The local attitude seemed to be, “Who’s next on the list?” Within a day, local “suspicion” focused on “a man residing in their neighborhood who had made talk about burning the buildings.”

Nope, he had an alibi, too.

The alleged perpetrator lived much closer to home, though. On Friday,

September 23, 15-year-old Oak Grove student George A. Harrington “ran away, proceeded to Stockton [Springs, evidently],” and then made his way to Brockton, Massachusetts, where he started “attending school again.”

Detective True figured Harrington might be good for the gymnasium fire, perhaps even the seminary fire and young Jones’s murder. Apprehended in Brockton on Friday, September 30, Harrington and True traveled by train to Augusta, arriving on Saturday morning, October 1.

Transported “to a store in the neighborhood” of Oak Grove School, “he made a clean breast of his crime” as True “and several other persons present” listened. Once Harrington’s confession was written on paper, Justice of the Peace Charles W. Jones, a Vassalboro resident perhaps related to Oak Grove Principal Charles H. Jones, had

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the suspect swear to its authenticity.

He admitted to torching both buildings and, hence killing Jones.

Harrington reeked of teen-age attitude and something more frightening.

Principal Jones said, “the boy was never considered bad by him and usually kept very straight.”

However, “when angry he was sullen and sulky,” behavior not that much different from other Maine teen-agers since 1887.

Asked why he had burned the buildings, Harrington replied “that the ‘grub’ was poor and [that] he was not used right,” whatever that meant.

“I suppose I was ugly, and I was led on in part by reading dime novels of which I have read a large number — all I could get,” Harrington said.

Witnesses to the confession apparently told the press that Harrington had “lost … all sense of right and wrong”

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and had “no conception of his crime.”

Perhaps a bit psychopathic in nature, he expressed no remorse for his crimes and did not repent for coincidentally killing Jones.

In early October, Harrington was arraigned in Waterville and charged with “burning a building in the nighttime.”

Hallowell attorney F.E. Bean represented the town, but the state provided no attorney to represent the suspect.

Pleading guilty to the charge, Harrington was ordered kept in the Kennebec County Jail until a regular court heard his case in December.

His trial opened in superior court in Augusta on Monday, December 21. Attorney Herbert M. Heath defended Harrington, who since his initial confession had sworn out a statement “implicating one Ronco of Vassalboro, who he said hired him to set the fire.”

Principal Jones testified about “the

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buildings and their location” on campus and about Harrington’s “conduct while at school.” Other witnesses, including a deputy sheriff and Justice of the Peace Jones, “testified relative to the boy’s confession and what he had said about his crime at different times,” a newspaper reported.

The trial’s outcome was never in doubt. Harrington was found guilty, and the verdict could finally “throw suspicion from parties in Vassalboro, who by a strong chain of circumstantial evidence had been marked as the incendiaries (arsonists).”

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Main Street in Eustis. Item # LB2008.19.115495 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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A ferry across the Kennebec River in Bingham, ca. 1904. Item # 23398 from the collections of the Maine Historical Society and www.VintageMaineImages.com

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Jackman Hotel at Jackman Station. Item # LB2008.19.116277 from the Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co. Collection and www.PenobscotMarineMuseum.org

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201 Tire, Battery & Service................................................................21 ABC Pool & Spa Center......................................................................14 ABT Plumbing, Heating & Cooling....................................................28 Affordable Well Drilling Excavation & Forestry..................................16 American Awards, Inc. ......................................................................17 Archie's Inc. .......................................................................................38 Asian Café..........................................................................................21 Asian Noodle Bowl............................................................................21 Athens Corner Store...........................................................................38 Beaulieu Garage Doors......................................................................37 Best Western Plus Augusta Civic Center Inn....................................18 Bishop's Store....................................................................................36 Bob's Cash Fuel..................................................................................40 C&S Market.........................................................................................7 Carrabassett Valley Anti Gravity........................................................40 Central Maine Community College....................................................13 Collins Enterprises.............................................................................29 Colonial Valley Motel.........................................................................29 Comfort Inn Civic Center...................................................................18 Computer Improvements...................................................................33 Cote Crane & Rigging........................................................................12 Cote's Transmission.............................................................................6 Countryside Auto Body & Repair.........................................................4 Cushing Construction........................................................................23 Cushing Storage & Rentals LLC.........................................................23 Damboise Garage..............................................................................21 Dan's Automotive Repair & Sales.....................................................38 Dark Star Fabrics...............................................................................32 Design Architectural Heating............................................................13 Devaney Doak & Garrett Booksellers................................................39 Dirigo Federal Credit Union...............................................................15 Double T Fence....................................................................................5 E.J. Carrier Inc. ................................................................................42 Elmer's Barn & Antique Mall...............................................................8 Emery's Meat & Produce Inc. .........................................................19 EverClean Water Treatment Systems.................................................24 Farmington Farmers Union & Union Rental.......................................39 Feed Commodities International.......................................................20 Fine Line Paving & Grading...............................................................34 Foothills Flooring & Tile....................................................................12 Franklin Savings Bank.......................................................................31 Franklin-Somerset Federal Credit Union.............................................4 G&G Cash Fuels.................................................................................16 Gerard's Pizza......................................................................................8 Greenwood Orchards Farmstand & Bakery......................................24 Greg's Auto Repair............................................................................40 Hammond Lumber Company............................................................23 Hardy's Motorsports..........................................................................41 Harris Drug Store...............................................................................36 Harvest Time Natural Foods..............................................................17 Home Auto Group.............................................................................30 Jackman Auto Parts...........................................................................42 Jackman Motel..................................................................................36 Jackman Power Sports......................................................................35 Jimmy's Shop 'N Save........................................................................41

BUSINESS

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Joe's Flat Iron Café............................................................................40 JW Awning Co. ...................................................................................6 Keith Hadley Inc. ...............................................................................5 Kennebec Valley Chamber of Commerce.........................................17 Kersey Real Estate.............................................................................28 Kineo View Lodge.............................................................................36 Kirkpatrick's Service & Repair.............................................................8 KP's Seafood & Chicken....................................................................14 Kyes Insurance...................................................................................28 Kyle Gunzinger - Medicare Specialist................................................20 Lakes Region Power Systems............................................................32 Lakeview Lumber Co. ......................................................................37 Laney's Pit Stop.................................................................................33 Langlois' Collision Center Inc. ...........................................................13 Larsen's Electric.................................................................................39 Lavallee's Garage...............................................................................41 Law Office of Brian D. Condon, Jr, Esq. ...........................................17 Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce....................16 Liberte Auto Sales.............................................................................15 Linkletter & Sons, Inc. ........................................................................4 Lizotte Construction...........................................................................24 Macomber, Farr & Whitten Insurance..................................................7 Maine At War.....................................................................................39 Main Street Café................................................................................39 Maine Family Federal Credit Union....................................................16 Maine Historical Society.......................................................................4 Maine Instrument Flight....................................................................17 Maine Mobile CPR LLC.........................................................................6 Maine Pellet Sales LLC........................................................................6 Mainely Pupplies Plus, LLC..................................................................5 Maine's Northwestern Mountains.....................................................31 Mainiac Ink Screenprinting...............................................................31 Maple Inn..........................................................................................35 Maple Valley Pharms.........................................................................22 Maritime Energy................................................................................20 McAllister Accounting and Tax Services............................................38 McNaughton Construction.................................................................22 Mike Wainer Plumbing & Heating.....................................................34 Monkitree.......................................................................................19 Moosehead Motorsports....................................................................36 Mount Blue Motel.............................................................................29 Naples Packing Co., Inc. ...................................................................38 Northeast Laboratory Services..........................................................37 One Day At A Time Coaching..............................................................23 Otis Federal Credit Union..................................................................25 Our Village Market............................................................................40 Oxford Casino.........................................................................back cover Oxford Federal Credit Union..............................................................27 Pa’s Tradin’ Company..........................................................................11 Penobscot Marine Museum.................................................................9 Pine Tree Orthopedic Lab...................................................................24 Pitcher Perfect Tire Service...............................................................25 Presidential Pest Control....................................................................10 R&B's Home Source...........................................................................35 R.E. Lowell Lumber Inc. ....................................................................17

BUSINESS

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R.J. Energy Services, Inc. ...................................................................7 R.S. Pidacks Inc. ................................................................................38 Rare Woods USA................................................................................26 RDA Automotive..................................................................................5 Record Building Supply, Inc. ...............................................................5 Red Door Title - Ryan Wilford...........................................................32 Redington-Fairview General Hospital................................................34 Renoster............................................................................................10 Rolfe's Well Drilling Co. ....................................................................19 Ron's Transmissions.............................................................................7 Rottari Electric.....................................................................................5 Route 26 Antiques & Flea Market......................................................11 Russell & Sons Towing & Recovery....................................................11 Ryan Sounier Contracting, LLC............................................................8 Sackett and Brake Survey Inc. ..........................................................32 Salt & Pepper and Sugar Too.............................................................26 Sarge's Pub & Grub............................................................................32 Seahorse Lounge...............................................................................26 Skowhegan Regional Chamber of Commerce....................................34 Smile Again Dentures, Inc. ...............................................................15 Smokin' Good Times ME....................................................................41 Sprague & Curtis Real Estate.............................................................19 Sterling Electric..................................................................................28 Stevens Electric & Pump Service Inc...................................................3 Strong Hardware & Building Supply..................................................40 Styling Dog Grooming Boutique.........................................................6 Sugarbowl Family Entertainment.....................................................31 Tapps Bar & Grill................................................................................35 The Bankery & Skowhegan Fleuriste................................................33 The Chapman House..........................................................................12 The Lure Restaurant...........................................................................26 The Meadows......................................................................................6 The Public Theatre............................................................................14 The Raven Collections.......................................................................11 The Sterling Inn................................................................................35 The Village Flea................................................................................28 Todd's Discount & Gift Shop..............................................................25 Tom Finn Shoe Repair..........................................................................7 Town of Mexico.................................................................................24 Trail's End Steakhouse & Tavern........................................................40 Tri-State Staffing Solutions.................................................................8 Urethane Foam Insulations................................................................19 Vasvary Electric...................................................................................8 Village Scrubboard............................................................................32 Wallace Dumpster Rentals................................................................10 Wallace Trailer Parts.........................................................................10 Weeks & Sons Well Drilling...............................................................22 Whited Truck & Equipment Center....................................................13 Whittemore & Sons Outdoor Power Equipment................................33 Wilson Funeral Home..........................................................................3 Windsor Preventive Dental Care........................................................20 Winslow Supply, Inc. .......................................................................37 Woodlawn Rehab & Nursing Center.................................................33 Wood-Mizer of Maine........................................................................39

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— 2025/2026 Kennebec, AndroscogginKennebec, & Sandy River Valleys Androscoggin & Sandy— River Valleys

JACKPOTS START AT $20,000!

Hourly Drawings every Saturday from 3:00PM to 8:00PM

Hourly Drawings every Friday from 6:00PM to 10:00PM

See www.OxfordCasino.com for up-to-date jackpot amounts and schedule changes.

Just minutes from the Maine Turnpike on Rt. 26!

Enter at a promotional kiosk 3 hours prior to the first drawing. Must be present at kiosk to select numbers and to win. All picks are final and valid for date of entry only. Grand and secondary prizes must be claimed within 5 minutes of announcement with valid, government-issued, photo ID. If there are multiple cash grand prize winners, prize will be split evenly between winning entrants. There is no consolation prize if grand or secondary prize is not claimed. All other Free Slot Play prizes will be automatically loaded onto players’ accounts. No purchase necessary. Oxford Casino Hotel reserves the right to change or cancel the promotion at any time with the approval of MGC. Not responsible for machine, hardware, software, or printing issues. Persons under 21 years of age may not enter the gaming area or restaurants unless licensed as employees. Gambling problem? In Maine, call 2-1-1 or 1-800-522-4700 or visit adeptme. org/problem-gambling for virtual exclusion help.