Royal River Park is an
urban park
An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...
in
Yarmouth,
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
, United States. It is located to the northwest of the town center, between East Elm Street to the west and Bridge Street to the east.
U.S. Route 1
U.S. Route 1 or U.S. Highway 1 (US 1) is a major north–south United States Numbered Highway that serves the East Coast of the United States. It runs from Key West, Florida, north to Fort Kent, Maine, at the Canadian border, making ...
runs through the park via an overpass.
The park is named for the
Royal River
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a c ...
, which passes through the park at its northern extremity, about west of
Yarmouth's harbor, into which it empties after its journey from its source. The park runs along the southern banks of the river for about . At its widest point, the park is about wide.
The park has entrances at East Elm Street, Mill Street, Yarmouth Crossing Drive, William H. Rowe Elementary School and Bridge Street.
The more easterly of the two pedestrian bridges in the Royal River Park is built on old
abutment
An abutment is the substructure at the ends of a bridge span or dam supporting its superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end which provide vertical and lateral support for the span, as well as acting as retaining walls ...
s for a trolley line which ran between Yarmouth and Freeport between 1906 and 1933. The
Beth Condon Memorial Pathway
The Beth Condon Memorial Pathway is a recreation path in Yarmouth, Maine, United States. It is named in memory of 15-year-old Yarmouth High School sophomore Beth Condon, who was killed by drunk driver Martha Burke in 1993 as she walked along U.S. ...
crosses the bridge.
Three of the town's four waterfalls are within the bounds of the park. The
Third (or ''Baker'') Falls were, by far, the most industrious of the four. The first buildings — Jeremiah Baker's grist mill, a
carding mill and a
nail
Nail or Nails may refer to:
In biology
* Nail (anatomy), toughened protective protein-keratin (known as alpha-keratin, also found in hair) at the end of an animal digit, such as fingernail
* Nail (beak), a plate of hard horny tissue at the tip ...
mill — wears erected in 1805 on the eastern side of the river. On the western (or town) side of the river was a
scythe
A scythe ( ) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing grass or harvesting crops. It is historically used to cut down or reap edible grains, before the process of threshing. The scythe has been largely replaced by horse-drawn and then tractor mac ...
and
axe
An axe ( sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has ma ...
factory owned by Joseph C. Batchelder. Benjamin Gooch's
fulling
Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...
mill followed in 1830, but it later moved to the Fourth Falls.
[''Ancient North Yarmouth and Yarmouth, Maine 1636-1936: A History'', William Hutchison Rowe (1937)]
The Yarmouth Paper Company, which produced paper pulp, was built in 1864. The main access road to it was an extended version of today's Mill Street, off Main Street. The original building burned in 1870. Two years later, a
soda pulp mill — named C.D. Brown Paper Company
[''Reminiscences of a Yarmouth Schoolboy'', Edward Clarence Plummer (Marks Printing House, 1926)] — was built, to which Samuel Dennis Warren
"Sappi North America formally dropping the S.D. Warren Co. name"
- ''Portland Press Herald'', September 5, 2018 and George Warren Hammond bought the rights in 1874 and renamed it the Forest Paper Company. Beginning with a single wooden building, the facility expanded to ten buildings covering as many acres, including a span over the river to Factory Island. Two bridges to it were also constructed. In 1909, it was the largest such mill in the world, employing 275 people. The mill used of poplar each year, which meant mounds of logs were constantly in view beside Mill Street. Six railroad spurs extended from the tracks running behind Main Street to the Forest Paper Company, traversing today's Royal River Park. Rail cars delivered logs, coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
, soda and chlorine
Chlorine is a chemical element with the symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate between them. Chlorine i ...
to the mill and carried pulp away. The mill closed in 1923, when import restrictions on pulp were lifted and Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
pulp became a cheaper option. The mill burned in 1931, leaving charred remains on the site until the development of the Royal River Park in the early 1980s. In 1971, the Marine Corps Reserve
The Marine Forces Reserve (MARFORRES or MFR), also known as the United States Marine Corps Reserve (USMCR) and the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve, is the reserve force of the United States Marine Corps. It is the largest command, by assigned p ...
tore down the old factory, before a Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
demolition team used fourteen cases of dynamite to raze the remains.[''Images of America: Yarmouth'', Alan M. Hall (Arcadia, 2002)] Most of the remaining debris was crushed and used as fill for the park but several remnants of the building are still visible today.
File:RR Park bridge.jpg, Pedestrian bridge across the Royal River
File:Forest Paper Company 2, Yarmouth ME.jpg, Forest Paper Company's log pile in the park
File:Third Falls.jpeg, Remnants of the mill's foundations on Baker Falls' Factory Island in the park
References
{{reflist
External links
Royal River Park
– Yarmouth Community Services
Royal "River Park hosts Easter egg hunt"
– WMTW, YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
, March 27, 2016
Buildings and structures in Yarmouth, Maine
Parks in Cumberland County, Maine
Urban public parks