Skowhegan Historic District

The town of Skowhegan, Maine was settled in 1771, incorporated as Canaan in 1788, and changed its name to Skowhegan in 1836, after the falls on the Kennebec River. In 1861 Skowhegan annexed the neighboring town of Bloomfield, which was located on the south side of the river. For many years the town's primary locus of economic activity was in the Bloomfield section on the south side of the river. By the 1840s Water Street, which parallels the river north and east of Skowhegan Island, had become the town's principal center of business. The town was named the shire town of Somerset County in 1872, spurring growth beyond that afforded by the town's successful industries.^[2]

The oldest surviving building in the district is the Patten Block, which may date as far back as 1836. This building's interesting history includes an extended period when it was occupied by a restaurant that also operated a speakeasy during the state's many years of Prohibition. The district's buildings are in a diversity of architectural styles, from vernacular commercial structures such as the c. 1895 Fogg Building, a two-story wood frame building, to the Art Deco August Trust Bank building and the Beaux Arts Depositors Trust building, designed by Penn Varney of Lynn, Massachusetts and built in 1909. The district's most architecturally sophisticated building is the Town Hall and Opera House, designed by noted Portland architect John Calvin Stevens. It is a Colonial Revival edifice built in 1909, and is further notable for its association with United States Senator and Skowhegan native Margaret Chase Smith, who was employed by the town in 1916.^[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Skowhegan Historic District.

• National Register of Historic Places listings in Somerset County, Maine