From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
The Spruces at Dixon's Lakeside Cottages, Readfield Depot, Maine G22C
Image shows a rustic one-story cabin with a screened porch on the wooded shore of a lake. The waterfront is a flat, shallow beach outfitted with a simple dock. This cottage model would be suitable for a couple's vacation stay. Located on the east shore of Lake Maranacook, the cottages at "Dixon's" were once part of a summer camp called Kamp Kiwanacook, founded by Readfield attorney Ellsworth E. Peacock in 1925. He later converted the complex to housekeeping cottages, calling it Kamp Peacock. Around 1950 the cottages were owned by the Dixon family, who sold the cabins to individual buyers. Many remain and are in private hands today. The area is now known as "Lazy Loon Shores". [Blog - Readfield History Walks, #27] Some context: In the introduction to "In the Maine Woods: An Insider's Guide to Traditional Maine Sporting Camps" Alice Arlen writes: "There is a grand tradition that has become an integral part of Maine's heritage: unique to the state, and over 140 years old, it is called the Maine sporting camp. Some people think of these camps as 'hunting and fishing lodges.' " "...Nearly all sporting camps are on a lake or river, generally in a remote area of forested land. Most have buildings made of peeled and chinked logs with porches over looking the water. The guest sleeping cabins are clustered near the shore around a central dining lodge. Plumbing was (and often still is) 'out back'. Primitive, and in harmony with their surroundings, sporting camps have the appearance of having grown out of the ground. New Hampshire and Vermont have private hunting and fishing clubs and game preserves. New York, in the Adirondacks, has private camps and rustic estates. But Maine sporrting camps are open to paying customers and are a cultural and entrepreneurial resource distinctive to the state. Several factors came together to produce the Maine sporting camps. The post-Civil War transition into the Victorian era saw tremendous industrial and economic expansion and the development of technologies such as the thermo-combustion engine and electricity. The iron and steel industries flourished, and the railroads entered their golden age. The high economic growth rate in [this]...era created a substantial upper-middle class...those who could sought escape from the questionable influences and pollution of the cities, as well as from the summer heat...Recreational sailing and canoeing are lasting legacies of the Victorian era. Hunting, fishing, and hiking took on a certain cachet as sporting pursuits instead of merely functional activiites. Not only did people have motives for escape (aesthetics, expendable income, leisure time, status, health concerns) they also had the means. It is no coincidence that the heyday of fishing and hunting in Maine was also the golden age of lumbeirng and railroading.The very rail lines that were bringing trainloads of Maine timber to fuel factory burners also carried trainloads of vacationers...With the growth of a national rail transportation network, an extended family vaction at one of the much-publicized public sporting camps in the Maine wilderness became possible and desirable. The Bangor, the Aroostook, and the Central Maine Railroads all offered direct service to Brownville in 1881, to Presque Isle in 1882, to Katahdin Iron Works in 1883, and reached Moosehead lake in 1884. The Somerset Railroad came to Bingham in 1890; the narrow-gauge trains got to Rangeley and Carrabassett by 1895; and the Katahdin, Allagash, and Fish River areas were opened by 1900. ...In 1904 there were at least 300 sporting camps in operation in Maine. In 1997, there were few more than...78. After WWII...the railroads were in decline and automobiles and motor [homes] were on the increase. The road system in Maine was poor and people stayed close to the tarmac, where motels and motor-coach campgrounds were now the rage."
