Main St. Bingham ME. 16.

Main St. Bingham ME. 16.

Image of the center of a small town, with frame buildings and shops lining the curved dirt street. Pedestrians and horses harnessed to wagons animate the scene on a summer day. An immense American flag hangs off a pole outside a clothier shop at the left, filling the center of the image. Two men just below it seem to pose for the Eastern photographer; it may be that they, and others in the picture, were asked to pose. The photographer's car may be the one in the distance. A horse attached to a buggy waits near a telephone pole at the right while its master runs an errand. A row of small shops at the right harken to an earlier time, when Bingham, located on the Kennebec River, was a water-powered lumber mill town. The clothing store's large, street front plate glass windows are a modern contrast to the row of simple shops at the far right. Other than the "Hats, Shoes, Etc." advertising on the building at the left, the "Central Maine Power" sign farther down the block seems to have an outsized presence. The office here indicates that the company, founded in 1899, had come to Bingham to develop new hydroelectric sites. The company name, "Central Maine Power", had been officially established in 1910. The town would become "an important Maine Central Railroad loading point for pulpwood floated down the ...river to Wyman Dam..." [Wikipedia]