County Ghosts: The Patten & Sherman Railroad

Lewiston Evening Journal, 1893

Past some dilapidated buildings in an old mill town (bought from Massachusetts for $1.75 an acre in 1832 and then described as "cosmopolitan" by the Lewiston Daily Sun in 1894) in Northern Maine is a patch of ground that was big news in 1895. ...

But first, some background: if you're going North to Limestone or Houlton and don't want to use the Interstate -- you're going to be using Route 11. Rt 11 goes through a number of mill towns which have definitely seen better days. The wilderness rd will wind through Stacyville (containing Sherman Station and Mills), Mt Chase and Patten. While these places aren't ghost towns, spectres of the past lurk everywhere - yearning for you to recognize the fact that these places were once centers of commerce that have been left behind.

Seavey's general store in 1910. One of 3 stores in the town at the time. Top: Google Earth 2007.

This handful of (what were at the time) frontier timber, ice harvesting, and agrarian towns have seen booms, busts and murders that would be at home in the history pages of the Lewistons, Bangors, and Lincoln's. This post isn't going to cover all of the towns along the Aroostook Scenic Highway corridor - but rather will be focused on Sherman Mills & Sherman Station.

As you exit the interstate way up around exit 276, going to the right will take you to Sherman Mills and going to the left will take you to Sherman Station. Sherman mills once had a booming timber economy at the turn of the century, with Sherman Station acting as its logistical port, so to speak. By the late 19th century, Sherman Mills was a town to watch -- as residents from all over the state would read about the small town's developments in the circulation of the Lewiston Sun Journal. Most of the outlook from this period is agricultural.

In fact, Sherman was one of the towns regularly corresponding with the Lewiston Daily Sun in that era -- As you can see below, it was full of productive woods and tradesmen, and even had some small evidence of social issues within its borders. I'd say a week in Northern Maine where someone becomes "violently insane" and someone else pokes their eye out was an exciting one!

The rail road that connected Sherman to Patten and then from Patten to points elsewhere brought life to this small town whose survivors still make their livings on its heavily worn streets. It's the largest recognizable feature -- a crossing to a mill abutted by abandoned warehouse buildings who last saw use (according to faded signage) in the mid to late 1980s.

These three buildings are what remains, as you drive by you can see that several of the buildings have extensive facades on their backsides (away from the road) that have since fallen. In the aerial above, you can also see the outline of a foundation of a building that once would have been involved in the job of moving wares from the mills in the area to points elsewhere.

You used to be able to find a lot more 'points elsewhere' than you would in the current time, as illustrated in the aerial photo below that there was additional track about 1/4 mile past this station, but it has since been removed.

The section of track in the picture above that would have headed north actually heads through the woods all the way to "Station Rd" in Patten, creating the rather short "Patten and Sherman Railroad", later to be absorbed by the Bangor & Aroostook. The Annual Report of state Railroad Commissioners from 1895 indicates that this extension was built on the cusp of the 20th century to extend the line six miles to a "thriving" town of Patten. The railroad grade has since been turned into a walking trail; otherwise all that remains of it is a welding business on Potato Ln in Patten, and this triangle of railroad grades in the woods behind some abandoned buildings in Sherman.

In addition to the town's rail history, several other aspects have been manifest in the return of man made structure to nature.

Sherman's 1 room schoolhouse, in 1985. (C) MaineEncyclopedia.com

An abandoned house between Sherman and Patten, photographed 2014 (Original Content)

An abandoned mid-century storefront. Photographed 2014 (Original Content)

Sherman continued to be an important piece of the Northern Maine puzzle until the early 1990s, when the mills in town were shut down and sold off on a rainy morning, piece by piece, to people 'from away' while the townspeople watched their future broken into pieces, bought by strangers and re-sold.

Driving through the area you get an overwhelming sense that something used to be here, and you'd be right.