Lewiston, Augusta, N. Waterville St. Ry, - Augusta to Winthrop Line 31

Lewiston, Augusta, N. Waterville St. Ry, - Augusta to Winthrop Line 31

"Lewiston, Augusta, N. Waterville, Ry, - Augusta to Winthrop Line 31" Interurban electric railroad View of "The Mansion House", and the "Lewiston, August & Waterville" trolley line in Manchester. The area was called "The Forks", (or, "Hallowell Crossroad" when Manchester was still part of Hallowell) because seven roads met there. In the 19th century it was a main thoroughfare for shingle-weavers (men who made wood shingles and shakes) on their way to the shipping ports in Hallowell. The Mansion House, built prior to 1800, was a tavern with stables, and a convenient stopover for the shingle-weavers. They would leave the tavern early in the morning for Hallowell, unload their product, and return here just in time for an evening meal and another overnight before heading home the next morning. The 1867 publication "Agriculture of Maine", the annual report of the Maine Board of Agriculture, describes the scene here in winter: "At the Hallowell Cross Roads, now Manchester Forks, we have seen, when the sleighing was good in the winters of 1814, 1815, 1816, and 1817, whole lines of teams and pungs, like an unbroken procession, moving into Hallowell, laden with wheat and other farm products..." The trolley line was built in 1890 by the Augusta, Hallowell & Gardiner Street Railway. The line ran until 1932, when the tracks were taken up.