Depot Square, Oakland Me. 1.

Depot Square, Oakland Me. 1.

View of the railroad level crossing and depot and the business center of Oakland, Maine near Waterville. The depot was the transfer point for tourists en route to the Mount Kineo House on Moosehead Lake, a two or three hour train ride north. The image shows Depot Square, with two sets of tracks at center crossing what may be the town's Main Street, and the passenger and two-story freight stations. The tall gates at the level crossing stand open to allow traffic, which appears to be mostly horse-drawn wagons, to pass. According to the Oakland Historical Society website, "Th Androscoggin and Kennebec Railroad, now part of the Maine Central Railroad, came through Oakland in December 1849. When the depot was built, the business center of town shifted from the lake area (possibly Messalonskee Lake) to the present downtown. This depot was torn down around 1956...Somerset Railway began in Oakland and ran to Moosehead Lake...It was absorbed by the Maine Central in 1904." A few years later, in 1911, the Maine Central Railroad purchased the Mt. Kineo House, then the largest inland lakeside hotel in the country. It thrived as a popular mountain and golf resort until the Depression. The Maine Central abandoned the Kineo branch and sold the hotel in 1938.