Contributed by Penobscot Marine Museum
Description
From the 1920s to 1940s Damariscotta Mills was the business center of Nobleboro.
Main Street (Bayview Road in 2020) paralleled the tracks of the Knox and Lincoln Railroad, which ran along Great Salt Bay in Damariscotta Mills on its route between Bath and Rockland. The Baptist Church. built in 1854 with the bell tower and bell added later, faced Main Street. The church closed in 1973 when only six members remained and in 2020 is a residence.
The fish plant in the lower left opened in 1892 for processing alewives (river herring). The fish migrated each spring from the ocean up the Damariscotta River, through Great Salt Bay, up the fish ladder stream into the mill pond, and then into Damariscotta Lake to breed. Behind the fish plant alewives swam into pens, where workers used dip nets to scoop them out for salting and pickling or fileting. The seven small shacks between the railroad and road were used to smoke alewives. The fish were a common local food, and thousands of barrels a year were exported to the West Indies and other foreign markets. The plant closed in the late 1960s.
More than fifty years later local organizations and towns funded a reconstruction of the fish ladder to ensure alewives will continue to run each year.
About This Item
- Title: Damariscotta Mills, Damariscotta, ca. 1925
- Creator: Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co.
- Creation Date: circa 1925
- Subject Date: circa 1925
- Location: Damariscotta Mills, Damariscotta , Lincoln County, ME
- Media: Glass Plate Negative
- Dimensions: 12.7 cm x 17.8 cm
- Local Code: LB2008.19.114853
- Collection: Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Co.
- Object Type: Image
Cross Reference Searches
Standardized Subject Headings
- Damariscotta (Me.)
- Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company
- Photographic postcards
- Postcards
- Seafood industry
Other Keywords
- Alewives
- Churches
- Fish
- Fish ladders
- Fish migration
- Fish processing
- Food
- Great Salt Bay
- Knox and Lincoln Railroad
- Main Street
- Railroads
- Seafood
- Seafood industries
- Town centers
For more information about this item, contact:
Penobscot Marine MuseumPO Box 498, 5 Church Street, Searsport, ME 04974
(207) 548-2529
Website
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. No Permission is required to use the low-resolution watermarked image for educational use, or as allowed by the applicable copyright. For all other uses, permission is required.
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