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| Today |
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New Road to Ride Over Part of Aurora’s Past
The Airline Road cuts through this town like a divider, leaving the
121 residents either north or south of the major truck route
between
Bangor
and Calais. Within weeks, the new Airline Road—and the old Route
9—will represent a division between the old and the new as well.
<complete story>
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Yesterday |
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Grant to Give
Brick School A Facelift and Future
You can’t go
too far in
Aurora
before coming upon place names that reflect the town’s earliest
settlers. Silsby Hill and Silsby Plain honor Samuel Silsby Jr.
as Aurora’s
first homesteader. Samuel Silsby arrived in 1805 to work near
his brother, Goodell Silsby, who had set up a mill in
neighboring
Amherst
in 1903.
Giles Road
was also named after the family that settled in the early 1800s
near what was later named Giles Pond.
<complete story>
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Neighbors |
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A Gathering
Point for Generations
Just mention Mother Mace when you step into the store, and Melody
Mace Knadler likely will smile for the rest of the week.
Knadler is co-owner with her husband of Mace’s Store on Route 9,
the one place in town that is central to every local person’s
life.
<complete story>
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Memories |
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It was 1941
And There Was Light
When the lights
went on in 1941, they lit up the town like never before. That’s
because until that fall, Aurora and the other small towns in the
Union River watershed didn’t have electricity.
And, given how every day changed when the lights came on, wiring
the town for power was the biggest thing that ever happened in
this small place.
<complete story>
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| Written and
photographed by Katherine Williams. She can be contacted at
667-2576. |
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Go
Figure |
Aurora Facts
Acreage: 23,880
Population, 2000: 121
Population, 1990: 82
Population 19 years old and younger, 2000: 39
Median age: 34.8
School: Airline Community School in Aurora
Town meeting: Last Saturday in September
<more town facts>
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They
Said It |
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“To
live in such a small town, in this
 time of our country’s history, to have
such tranquility and privacy, and to be surrounded by family, is just
wonderful.”
—Melody Mace Knadler
Co-owner, Mace’s
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Milestones |
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The early years:
1827:
The Brick School House opened. Teacher was Herbert T. Silsby.
1830s:
Townspeople started recording deeds.
1851:
Mace’s Store opened.
1857:
The Mansion House, an inn built in 1825, became a stage stop.
1858:
John Black was well established as a lumber operator who owned 7,000
acres.
1880s:
Population reached about 200, its highest ever. These were the boom days
of lumbering.
(Source: The History of
Aurora by Herbert L. Silsby, 1958)
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