A National Guard Company was first established in Millinocket prior to WWI. Some information about Company E and Company I of the 3 rd  Maine Regiment has been included in earlier writings. Company E met and drilled at the former Union Chapel building near the mill gate and eventually people referred to the building as the Armory.  Company E members served in WWI in Europe.             In later years, Company I members trained at the “new” armory on Spring Street and many of

On Jan. 6, 1928, a bronze memorial plaque on the front of the GNP administration building was unveiled in honor of Garret Schenck. The unveiling took place on the day of his funeral in Weston, Massachusetts. The plaque reads “To Garret Schenck, Founder and for Thirty Years President of the Great Northern Paper Company. He Planned and Constructed the Paper Mills at Millinocket, East Millinocket, East Madison and Madison, adding Much That Was Original in the Development of the

Odds and Ends From The MUSEUM! By Trudy Wyman, Curator, Millinocket Society Museum                         Millinocket, Penobscot County Maine, population 2500, January 1904. This information is on page one of a map book by the Sanborn Map Company of New York. This book and three more are in the collection of the Millinocket Historical Society. The 1904 book shows the layout of the downtown area with street names and information regarding water facilities and fire protection.

Odds and Ends From The MUSEUM!        By Trudy Wyman, Curator, Millinocket Society Museum             Shack Hill, Society Hill, Across the Tracks, New Development…words used to describe various sections of Millinocket through the years. And don’t forget Little Italy directly opposite the mill across Millinocket Stream. This neighborhood began when John Merrill, supervisor of GNP mill construction, went to Boston to secure Italian contract labor. Through Marco (Lavogne) Lav

In the early, 1970’s, Marion Whitney Smith & husband Kingman Smith wrote weekly articles for the Katahdin Journal. The following bits of information are from those articles. The Smiths had been in Millinocket from about the 1930’s and they also interviewed older Millinocket locals.          The first “stores” in the new town were on the mill site and one was Kimballs’ General Store in the mill yard. (He later had a large store downtown.) Gonya Brothers Boots and Shoes and Wm.

Sixty-three years ago (March 1963), the Stearns High School Minutemen made basketball history!             Following are excerpts from some of the news articles about the games. March 16-17, Bangor Daily News sports page…Stearns, Morse Make New England Cage Bids Tonight. For the first time, Maine will send two teams to the event, Morse High School and Stearns High School…and both teams face major hurdles. Stearns faces a tougher assignment (than Morse)…but Stearns has display

As the U.S. was coming out of the Depression of the 1930’s, Millinocket saw new growth including a new post office and a new school. Under the leadership of Father Quinn, a funding campaign began for the construction of a Catholic parochial school, St. Martin of Tours school. It would be a brick structure located beside the St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church and be constructed mostly by volunteer labor. (At that time the original Catholic Church was where the parking area be

A battery-operated crank GNP telephone from the driving operation at the head of Millinocket Lake was donated to the museum a while ago.  A written note with the donation explains its earlier use. “Circa 1900 Rush had a sawmill in The Pines at the confluence of Millinocket Stream and Smith Brook. Pine and spruce logs were driven down Sandy Stream and Mud Brook to holding dams. There were holding dams at the head of Millinocket Lake by the Priest Farm. A wood-fired steamboat t

During its tenure, the GNP Millinocket mill had quite a few different paper machines. Sometimes, after years of use and the changing needs of the paper industry, a paper machine would be replaced. This began mid 1920’s (McCann reference) when the Canadian paper industry was producing more paper than the United States. Great Northern reduced its per ton paper price and decided to start replacing its almost 30-year-old paper machines.               The May 1926 issue of The Nor

In Millinocket’s early days, businesses, doctors & lawyers offices and other establishments located in the downtown area did not have a street address, but were referred to by “block” location. There was the Decker Block, the Moore Block, the Hayden Block, the Rush Block, the Whalen Block and more. All advertisements in the local and Bangor newspapers used a block name. As time passed and new businesses took over a location, some names changed (Decker Block became known as De

Signs! Signs! Signs! Since the museum was organized in 1979, it has accepted donations of local signs…businesses, organizations, medical and more. A new exhibit at the Historical Society shows off a few from the collection. One of the oldest is a wooden Katahdin Avenue sign recovered in the 1980’s during a porch renovation. Another, with an interesting story, has one word MUSEUM, on it. This sign was created by Merrill Segee, one of the founders of MHS.  He found the piece o

The onset of World War 2 brought about changes in the way Great Northern Paper Company produced paper. John E. McLeod describes some of the changes in his history The Northern, The Way I Remember . McLeod states that even before Pearl Harbor, war controls were in effect in the US & Canada. Most of these government agencies went by letters…example – OPM for Office of Production Management. By 1942, these agencies made it difficult for GNP to get needed materials for repairs,

In January of 1951, Owen Osborne, sports writer for the Bangor Daily News, wrote an article about new features being added by the Katahdin Outing Club to the ski & recreation area on Black Cat Mountain outside of Millinocket.  Osborne predicted that this ski area, with views of Mt. Katahdin would become one of the leading recreation areas in the state of Maine! A new 1200 foot Underwood ski tow (almost in the shadow of Mt. Katahdin and bordering Millinocket Lake) had recentl

In the old logging days of GNP, work horses played a major role. In John E. McLeod’s The Northern, he describes the importance of these horses and the work they did. In the beginning of GNP, horses hauled supplies to the log camps in winter on sleds from Greenville to the head of Moosehead Lake (40 miles) on iced-over trails marked by brush stuck in the snow. They all traveled the same marked path, following one another to build up a hard-packed surface. There might have been

Odds and Ends From The MUSEUM!        By Trudy Wyman, Curator, Millinocket Society Museum   A phonograph was first demonstrated by Thomas Edison in 1877. His device recorded sound vibrations onto a tin foil cylinder which could then be played back.  In the 1880’s, Emil Berliner improved on Edison’s design by producing the gramophone. This machine played flat discs rather than cylinders. These inventions allowed music to be in homes in a ways and individuals and families star

Garrett Schenck, one of the founders of Great Northern Paper Company and its first president, had a home built in Millinocket. Most of the company’s presidents and founders did not reside in Millinocket. The Schenck house at 4 Hill St. still stands although in recent years, it has housed some businesses. The house has an interesting story as told in the Dorothy Laverty book So You Live In Millinocket? The Schenck home was built in 1907 with its foundation made of pieces of m

The ABC’s of some 2025 donations to the museum…from the ordinary to the unusual! A- Arrowheads, Advertisement (Fuller Furniture), Airport/airplane photos 1960’s B- Braille typewriter, Bank (coin bank Millinocket Trust), Boy Scout badges C- Communications equipment from MFD 1960’s-2000’s, Core (section paper roll core) D- DVD 5 th St. John Pond & East Branch 1937, SHS debate League program 1939E- End of summer playground parade photo F- Flags (flown Katahdin, Hawaii & Alaska

Happy Holidays from the Millinocket Historical Society! The holidays have been celebrated in many ways in Millinocket and the Katahdin region over the years. The museum’s collection has some items representing Christmas in this area.             The oldest item, no date, is a handmade card the size of an index card with an embossed scalloped edging secured with a piece of cloth.  The cloth has delicate embroidery with stitches outlining various flowers and leaves.  If you lif

From its beginning, Millinocket has been a musical community…bands, choirs, soloists and more. The earliest schools presented musical events, there was a town band. There were musical stars and other music performances at the ballfield. Music was a large part of everything happening in the booming town and down through the years. In the early days, Millinocket was isolated and the first “music stars” were locals. In 1901, there were several people offering music lessons (voi

“A Thrilling Tale of the River Drivers of Ripogenus, as We Boys Heard It from the Duke of Argyle.”  This story is a bit of folklore often told by river drivers in early days. The story takes place on the drive in the river near where Rip Dam would be built and features the mythical Miramichi Indian whose exploits rivaled those of Paul Bunyan. The Lewiston Journal Illustrated Magazine, July 6, 1935, has the story as related by Willard Pond (a river driver known as the Duke of