Milo, Maine
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Milo is a
town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...
in Piscataquis County,
Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...
, United States. The population was 2,251 at the 2020 census. Milo includes the village of Derby. The town sits in the valley of the Piscataquis, Sebec and Pleasant Rivers in the foothills of the Longfellow Mountains and is the gateway to many pristine hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, and other outdoor tourist locations such as Schoodic, Seboeis, and Sebec Lakes, Mount Katahdin and its backcountry in Baxter State Park and the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Katahdin Iron Works and Gulf Hagas.


History

The community was first known as Township Number 3 in the seventh range north of the Waldo Patent. It was settled by Benjamin Sargent and his son, Theophilus, from Methuen,
Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
, on May 2, 1802. On January 21, 1823, it was incorporated as Milo, named after
Milo of Croton Milo or Milon of Croton () was a famous Ancient Greece, ancient Greek athlete from Crotone, Croton, which is today in the Magna Graecia region of southern Italy. Milo was a six-time winner at the Ancient Olympic Games, Olympics, once for boys' w ...
, a famous athlete from ancient Croton in
Magna Graecia Magna Graecia refers to the Greek-speaking areas of southern Italy, encompassing the modern Regions of Italy, Italian regions of Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania, and Sicily. These regions were Greek colonisation, extensively settled by G ...
, Italy. It would become a trade center, with Trafton's Falls providing water power for early industry. In 1823, Winborn A. Swett built a dam at the river drop and erected the first
sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...
. Thomas White soon added a carding and fulling mill. The Joseph Cushing & Company built a woolen textile mill in 1842, but it burned six years later. The Bangor and Piscataquis Railroad arrived in 1868–1869, and Milo developed into a small
mill town A mill town, also known as factory town or mill village, is typically a settlement that developed around one or more List of types of mill#Manufacturing facilities, mills or factories, often cotton mills or factories producing textiles. Europe ...
. It produced numerous
lumber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
goods, and in 1879 the Boston Excelsior Company built a factory to manufacture excelsior. The American Thread Company built a factory with a
narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...
industrial railway in 1901–1902, moving its equipment from Willimantic, Connecticut.


Derby village

The early Bangor & Piscataquis and Bangor & Katahdin Iron Works railroads met at Milo Junction. After these railroads merged into the
Bangor and Aroostook Railroad The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad was a United States railroad company that brought rail service to Aroostook County, Maine, Aroostook County in northern Maine. Brightly-painted BAR boxcars attracted national attention in the 1950s. First-genera ...
, Milo Junction became the
company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...
of Derby with the second largest railroad car shop and repair facility in
New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
. In 1906 the railroad invested $414,448.95 in brick buildings including a two-story office, a planing mill, and an enginehouse with a locomotive shop and a 54,000-square-foot car shop connected by a
transfer table A transfer table or traverser is a piece of railway equipment. It functions similarly to a turntable (railroad), turntable, although it cannot be used to turn vehicles around. Overview A transfer table, also known as a traverser, consists of a si ...
moving back and forth above a repair pit. Employee housing initially included a 45-room hotel with a dining room for single railroad shopmen and 46 homes with bathrooms, hot water boilers, ranges, and electric lights for married men. The village expanded to include stores and 72 identical employee houses arranged in four rows along First and Second Streets. These uniformly-colored structures were sold by the railroad in 1959; and the hotel became a community center.


Ku Klux Klan

On Labor Day 1923, Milo became the site of the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
's first daylight parade in the northern United States. Seventy-five members of the Klan marched during the town's centennial celebration.


2008 fire

On September 14, 2008, a fire destroyed several buildings in downtown Milo, including a flower shop, an arcade, and a
True Value The True Value Company is an American wholesaler and Hardware store brand. The corporate headquarters are located in Chicago. Historically True Value was a cooperative owned by retailers, but in 2018 it was purchased by ACON Investments. In Oc ...
hardware store. Because of the age, composition, and vicinity of these buildings, the fire easily spread and devastated much of Main Street. Fire departments from Milo and from several surrounding towns were called in to extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported. Arson was determined to be the cause. In January 2009, Christopher M. Miliano was arrested and indicted on two counts of arson, one count of theft, one count of burglary, and one count of
aggravated assault In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result ...
; prosecutors claimed that Miliano set fire to a pub he had burglarized, resulting in the blaze. In July 2009, Miliano entered a guilty plea for his offense, and was sentenced by the Piscatiquis County Superior Court to twenty years in prison, with all but eight years suspended.


In popular culture

* The Sign of the Beaver is a children's historical novel by Elizabeth George Speare published in 1983. The story is set in the 18th century and follows a 12-year-old boy, Matt James Hallowell, who is building a log cabin with his father in the wilderness of Maine. Left alone at the cabin while his father leaves to retrieve the rest of the family, Matt struggles to cope with challenging survival situations and is ultimately aided by the appearance of Attean, a member of the indigenous Beaver tribe. The Sign of the Beaver was inspired by a true story dating from 1802 and documented in a history of the small town of Milo, Maine; in it, a teenage boy left to care for his family's cabin was helped by the local Natives when his supplies were ravaged by a bear. The book is one of Speare's most popular novels, winning multiple literary awards including the
Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction is an annual American children's book award that recognizes historical fiction. It was established in 1982 by Scott O'Dell, author of ''Island of the Blue Dolphins'' and 25 other children's books, in ho ...
. A 1997 TV movie called Keeping the Promise was based on Speare's novel. *The climactic charge in the Battle of Little Round Top and other events captured in Michael Shaara's
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
-winning novel, The Killer Angels (1975), and Gettysburg, the 1993 movie based on the book, relied heavily on just a few surviving diaries such as the one from Milo'
Sergeant William T. Livermore
His diary reads, “We were ordered to charge them when there were two to our one. With fixed bayonets and with a yell we rushed on them, which so frightened them, that not another shot was fired on us. Some threw down their arms and ran but many rose up, begging to be spared...After chasing them as far as prudent, we ‘rallied around the colors’ and gave three hearty cheers, then went back to our old position, with our prisoners.” An archive copy of his diary can be found at th
Milo Historical Society


Photo gallery

File:West Main Street, Milo, Maine.jpg, West Main Street File:Milo House, Milo, Maine.jpg, Milo House in 1910 File:Milo Junction, Maine.jpg, Milo Jct. (Derby) in 1908 File:TownLineEntering-MiloMEsign (35145756051).jpg, Street sign designating Milo


Geography

According to the
United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water. The town is located at the confluence of the Sebec River and the Piscataquis River. The Pleasant River is also within the town lines, giving the town the nickname of Town of Three Rivers. Milo is located within a few miles of the exact center of the state of Maine.


Climate

This climatic region is typified by large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot summers and cold winters. According to the
Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
system, Milo has a
humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...
, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps.Climate Summary for Milo, Maine
/ref>


Demographics


2010 census

As of the census of 2010, there were 2,340 people, 1,034 households, and 645 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 1,274 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 97.2%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 1.0%
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.4% Native American, 0.3% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 0.8% from two or more races.
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race were 0.9% of the population. There were 1,034 households, of which 26.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.9% were married couples living together, 12.2% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 37.6% were non-families. 32.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.78. The median age in the town was 44.7 years. 21.4% of residents were under the age of 18; 6.7% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 22.4% were from 25 to 44; 30% were from 45 to 64; and 19.6% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 48.8% male and 51.2% female.


2000 census

As of the census of 2000, there were 2,383 people, 1,021 households, and 659 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 1,215 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 98.36%
White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 0.34%
Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
or
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.59% Native American, 0.21% Asian, 0.04% from other races, and 0.46% from two or more races.
Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race were 0.17% of the population. There were 1,021 households, out of which 28.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.5% were married couples living together, 10.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.4% were non-families. 29.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.84. In the town, the population was spread out, with 24.1% under the age of 18, 6.9% from 18 to 24, 26.4% from 25 to 44, 23.5% from 45 to 64, and 19.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 88.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.2 males. The median income for a household in the town was $24,432, and the median income for a family was $31,875. Males had a median income of $27,393 versus $19,952 for females. The per capita income for the town was $12,732. About 12.8% of families and 16.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.7% of those under age 18 and 12.7% of those age 65 or over.


Sites of interest

* Milo Historical Society & Museum * Harrigan Learning Center and Museum * Milo-Brownville & Points North Visitors Center * Milo Public Library * Veterans Park * Doble Park * Maine ITS Snowmobile Trails – ITS 82 and 83 * ATV trails


Education

* Penquis Valley High School *Penquis Valley Middle School *Milo Elementary *Brownville Elementary


Notable people

* Wilder Stevens Metcalf, U.S. Army major general, member of the Kansas Senate * Oswald Tippo, Botanist and educator * Edward Youngblood, State legislator


References


External links


Milo Town OfficeFire of 2008 page from the Milo Historical Society
{{authority control Towns in Piscataquis County, Maine Towns in Maine Company towns in Maine