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Coaling Station Put Town on Map
Lamoine hit its
height in terms of significance to the federal government exactly
100 years ago—when the North Atlantic fleet arrived on the town’s
shoreline to refuel in August of 1903.
Not a trace remains of the ship-refueling station that put
Lamoine on the national map exactly 100 years ago. Today, the
place is the site of the Lamoine State Park.
LAMOINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY |
The coaling station
in Frenchman
Bay
was built, starting in 1901, to provide coal for Navy warships
protecting America’s Northeast.
But the Lamoine
Coaling Station had a brief lifespan, because on Aug. 22, 1904, the
station lost a tower to a heavy gale. Repairs cost $100,000, adding
to the $200,000 that the government had already spent on the
station’s construction. Not a year after it first operated, it was
temporarily out of service.
The station was in
decline soon later. Even though 10 additional cars and a belt were
added in 1907, the Navy was claiming in 1909 that the station was
“seldom used.”
It was shut down in
1912, “with a view to its ultimate abandonment and disposal of the
land.” As oil engines came in, coal was no longer an economical
fuel. And the Lamoine coaling depot was obsolete.
The only further
federal use came during World War I, when the coalhouse was used as
a federal nitrate storage plant. The 55 acres were sold to the state
of Maine in 1927.
In 1949, after the
land had been cleared and grass grew back over the once-concrete
site, the land was given to the state park commission. Today, people
can enjoy the result of that appropriation in the Lamoine State
Park.
Appropriately, the
road within the park is named “Coal Station Road.”
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