Cleaves' Hotel, Prospect Harbor, Me. 1.

LB2010.8.117223

117223

[included in the exhibit "Hancock County Through Eastern's Eye"] LB2010.8.117223 Cleaves Hotel, Prospect Harbor, ME. 1. On the corner of Prospect Harbor's Main Street and the Corea Road, this small hotel stood opposite the town post office and busy Deasy and Handy and L. P. Cole general store, visible in the background. Operated by Edwin W. Cleaves, a former blacksmith, it offered a cosmopolitan touch to the village from the 1890s to the 1920s as a "drummer's hotel" for visiting vendors, politicians, and businessmen. Mr. Cleaves was himself a patron of social events, serving as manager of the Prospect Harbor Dramatic Club's productions of such staples as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" with a cast of largely local players. Cleaves died at age 94 in the late 1920s as the hotel's clientele was declining; better vehicles and roads were making overnight stays less necessary for area salesmen, and area tourism had not yet picked up. The house has survived as a residence for the Leighton and then DiMarco families, with its elegantly bracketed porch and other details now removed. Credit: Allen Workman and Miriam Colwell of the Gouldsboro Historical Society