Augusta, Maine

Augusta, the capital of Maine, is located hundreds of miles from Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, yet its history can be traced to those early seventeenth-century English colonists who ventured up the Kennebec River and set up a trading post amongst the Abenaki tribes. Augusta continues to be the shopping center of central Maine, and trade and retail are vital to the city's economy, but government, education, and health care represent the state capital's strongest industries.

Landscape

Augusta is situated on the banks of the Kennebec River. At thirty-nine miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, it is located in the river's "head of tide" area, or the farthest or most inland point affected by tidal movements. While its location does not represent the exact geographical center of the state, the city of Augusta is considered a centralized location based on population, as the northern half of the state is largely forested and rural.

The city measures 55.4 square miles, split between the western and eastern sides of the Kennebec River, which flows south from Moosehead Lake in northern Maine to the Atlantic Ocean. Once heavily polluted and exploited by hydroelectric power, the river has since been revitalized and is now a popular destination for fishing, hunting, and swimming.

The landscape closest to Augusta consists of gently rolling hills dotted with lakes. To the west and north are the Longfellow Mountains, which are part of the Appalachians, the extensive mountain system that parallels the Atlantic seaboard.

The city receives an average annual snowfall of nearly seventy-eight inches, meaning springtime flooding is always a concern. (Late winter and early spring in Maine are also locally referred to as "mud season" due to the melting snow and increasing rainfall.) Augusta is also vulnerable to flooding from hurricanes that move up the coast. In September 2023, Hurricane lee impacted the region, causing flooding and numerous power outages. The warmer months average an additional forty-one inches of rainfall. Augusta's average high temperature for January is 28.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and the average low is 12.1 degrees Fahrenheit; July averages a high of 79.9 degrees Fahrenheit with lows of about 60.3 degrees.

People

According to the US Census Bureau, the number of people living in Augusta in 2021 was estimated to be 19,066. The majority of Augusta's residents are White (91.7 percent), and there are significant populations of people of French, French Canadian, and Irish descent. Approximately 1.7 percent of the city's population is African American and 1.1 percent of residents are Asian, while 2.4 percent are of Hispanic or Latino descent. American Indians and Alaska Natives make up about 0.6 percent of the population.

Augusta's cultural festivals emphasize the strong and collective identity of Maine residents, celebrating traditional fine crafts such as woodcarving, embroidery, pottery, and wildlife art. Augusta's festivals also celebrate Maine's distinct French Canadian and American Indian heritage, featuring activities such as chainsaw carving, the traditional music of French Canadian fiddlers, and Abenaki storytelling. The capital is also home to several seasonal farmers' markets.

Economy

Augusta's economy was originally built on shipping and shipbuilding, textiles, the leather industry, and lumber and wooden goods. Some of these goods are still manufactured in Augusta, although many jobs were shipped overseas in the late twentieth century. The loss of manufacturing jobs has accounted for much of the population migration of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

A significant portion of Augusta residents work for federal, state, and local government. Other large industries include health care and education. Major employers include MaineGeneral Medical Center, Augusta Public Schools, and the University of Maine. Central Maine Power Company, with headquarters in Augusta, is also a prominent employer.

Augusta is a regional hub for trade and has become a prominent retail center, while also attracting high-tech companies. With its central location near ski areas and coastal resorts, Augusta continues to reap the benefits of tourism, one of Maine's strongest industries. According to the Maine Office of Tourism, more than 15.3 million people visited the state in 2022, and tourism supported approximately 151,000 jobs and pumped $5.6 billion into local economies.

Overall, Augusta has struggled to keep up with the standard of living present elsewhere in Maine. According to the US Census Bureau, the estimated median household income in Augusta from 2018 to 2022 was $45,006, compared to $68,251 statewide. In addition, approximately 22.8 percent of individuals were estimated at living below the poverty level.

Landmarks

Augusta's historical and cultural landmarks include Old Fort Western, the oldest extant wooden fort in New England; the Maine State House, Maine's state capitol, designed by Boston architect Charles Bulfinch; and the Blaine House, built in 1833, which has served as the governor's residence since 1921.

The Maine State Museum is located a short distance from the Maine State House. Other museums include the Maine Military Historical Society museum and the Children's Discovery Museum.

The University of Maine Augusta campus includes the Holocaust and Human Rights Center, located in the Michael Klahr Center, and the Charles Dana Danforth Art Gallery, located in Jewett Hall. The Augusta Civic Center is the city's primary venue for concerts, sporting events, and conventions.

Augusta's outdoor landmarks include the Viles Arboretum, the Kennebec River Rail Trail, and Belgrade Lakes, the latter located about ten miles north of the city. Within an hour's drive to the west are several ski areas, including Sugarloaf and Saddleback Mountain. The Kennebec River and nearby streams offer opportunities for canoeing, kayaking, white-water rafting, fly-fishing, and other recreational water sports. To the east are numerous resorts along the Atlantic coast.

History

The Wabanaki people were the first people to live in, or pass through, the Augusta area, and included the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot tribes. Known especially for their birch-bark canoes, they were hunters and fishers who lived near the coast and made use of the many streams and rivers that flowed inland.

In the early 1600s, English settlers discovered the mouth of the Kennebec River where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Popham Beach, about thirty miles downstream from Augusta. There they set up one of the first settlements, called Popham Colony, and met the Abenaki. The colony would soon build the very first ship in the New World.

The next colonists to arrive on the Kennebec founded a settlement farther upstream at Bath. Although the English explored the river even farther inland, John Howland and his fellow Englishmen from Plymouth Colony were the first to see the merits of settling farther upstream in 1628. They established a trading post about thirty miles from Bath on the eastern side of the river, where they conducted business with the Abenaki for several decades. The post was called Cushnoc or Kinibeki. At times, French traders and missionaries ventured south from Canada. The post was abandoned as the relationship between English settlers and American Indians became increasingly strained during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

In 1754, the Kennebec Proprietors, a Boston-based company, established Fort Western, where Cushnoc used to be situated. Benedict Arnold used the fort in 1775 as he planned his ill-fated strategy for attacking Quebec during the American Revolution. After the war, Captain James Howard stayed on and turned the fort into a store that served a growing number of settlers. The fort became a center for trade with Boston, the Canadian provinces, Africa, and the West Indies. In exchange for Maine lumber and furs, the settlers procured ivory, sugar, and cotton.

The Old Fort Western settlement was incorporated in 1771 as Hallowell, named for one of the Kennebec Proprietors, Benjamin Hallowell. As the settlement continued to expand, the northerly section that included Fort Western split off from the more southerly section on June 9, 1791, and incorporated itself as Augusta. The name honored Pamela Augusta, daughter of Harry Dearborn, an American statesman and general from the Revolutionary War.

Augusta developed around the shipping and shipbuilding industry and served as an important transportation hub. It became the capital in 1827, seven years after the state entered the union. When the Kennebec River was dammed in 1837, the city became a major industrial area, with a sawmill, textile mill, and leather and tanning industry supplied with power from the river.

In 1865, a major fire devastated much of Augusta's business district. The city rebuilt, and in the aftermath new industries took hold, including publishing. Among these first literary entrepreneurs were William Howard Gannett and his son, Guy P. Gannett, who took advantage of the abundance of pulp paper and went on to found Guy Gannett Publications and Gannett Communications, owners of newspapers and radio stations.

Augusta continued to grow and diversify throughout the twentieth century. The section of the Maine Turnpike (I-95) that extended from Portland to Augusta was completed in 1955 and encouraged tourism and commerce. Education was given a boost when, in 1965, the University of Maine founded its Augusta campus. From the 1980s, increased attention was given to revitalizing the downtown area, with a city-state partnership incorporated in 1999 with that goal. In the first decade of the twenty-first century several major shopping center projects helped invigorate the city's retail industry, and efforts continued to support revitilization in addition to affordable housing and retail opportunities in the second decade.

Bibliography

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"Census State Data Center." State of Maine, Office of Policy and Management. Maine.gov, 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2013.

Gratwick, Harry. "The Sons of Fort Western." The Forts of Maine: Silent Sentinels of the Pine Tree State. Charleston: History, 2013. 69–79. Print.

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