L.O. Hanley's Store, So. Thomaston Me. 6a.

L.O. Hanley's Store, So. Thomaston Me. 6a.

"L.O. Hanley's Store, So. Thomaston Me. 6a." Post Office, Men, Women, Children, Cat, Cars, Telephone Poles, Horse Carts [included in the exhibit "Knox County Through Eastern's Eye"] L. O. Hanley Store, So. Thomaston, Me In 1845 William McLoon, Joshua Bartlett, Jr. and Archibald McKellar bought a lot at the end of the bridge in one-third shares and had a one-storey building constructed on it. It was used a sail loft into the 1860s. By 1863 Captain John P. Allen had a store and the post office in the building, and it had been raised 1 ½ stories. The upper floors became Knox Hall, where town meetings, lectures, traveling shows, dances, concerts, parties, and lodge meetings were held for decades. Lamont O. Hanley operated a store in the building from 1914 to 1918, when he moved to another store in the village. In 1922 the East Coast Fisheries Company of Rockland leased the building, where it opened a net factory, which employed 18 workers. The company owned big steam trawlers and had big ideas for the company, but it folded after about two years. The building, which was last used as a Pentacostal church, was torn down in 1956. The photo shows a family out for a ride in their open car. Emily Foster Rackliff is sitting next to her little granddaughter, Marion Rackliff. In the front seat is Marion's mother, Edna Rowell Rackliff, perhaps holding Marion's baby brother Maurice, who was born in April 1917. Edna's husband Archie, wearing a long coat, stands next to the telephone pole, with storekeeper Lamont Hanley in the doorway. Information provided by Bill Colby, South Thomaston Historical Society