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“It’s Big, But a Quiet Big”
By Katherine Williams
Like most other
Hancock
County
towns, Orland is a growing place. In this town’s case, the
population changed upward by more than 300 people between 1990 and
2000.
The year 2000 was
significant for the town reaching 2,134 people. That makes it the
county’s sixth-largest municipality (after Ellsworth, Bucksport, Bar
Harbor, Blue Hill and Hancock).
But there were
other reasons why 2000 was important to Orland: That’s when the town
marked 200 years. Residents took a full year to celebrate their past
and feel good about the place they live—and where a sizeable portion
of them grew up.
Said Wayne Ames,
who has been one of the selectmen nearly continuously since 1970,
“[The bicentennial] gave everyone a sense of community.”
But, Orland has
long had that, anyway. You can still get a cup of coffee for 50
cents at the Orland Market, which has stood as a general store in
the village, the heart of the town, since 1860.
The town is
geographically spread out, bordering Ellsworth on its eastern edge,
Penobscot on the south, with Bucksport to the west. Between
extensive stretches of both forest and farmland, two rivers, the
Penobscot and the Narramissic, flow through. There also are six
ponds dotted with hundreds of camps and homes.
Such extensive
waterfront is one of the reasons why Orland is 300 people larger
today compared to a dozen years ago. Many people have been turning
lakefront camps into their year-round residences, according to
Connie Brown, town clerk for the last 12 years.
She’s got her thumb
on all the changes of late.
“We have changed
into a full-time town office,” she said. “When I started, we were
open three days a week plus Thursday evenings.”
Some of the phone
calls that come into the office are from outsiders inquiring about
one of the town’s newest traditions: Orland Days, complete with its
dozen-plus home-made rafts floating down the Narramissic each June.
Orland Days and
informal fun aside, town officials stay busy the rest of the year
with more serious matters.
“Things are more
or less routine in town, although the planning board is busy with
development, and that affects everything we do,”
Ames said. “It’s big, but it’s a quiet big.”
Just like Orland
itself. |
