From collection Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company Collection
LB2010.9.120303
Image shows a part of a line of housekeeping cabins facing a lawn overlooking a lake. The cabins are shaded by white pine trees. Each has a tiny front porch outfitted with a bench. Several painted Adirondack chairs are lined up along the edge of the lawn, facing the lake. This is likely part of the Belvedere Resort on Lake Maranacook. The Belvedere and other large hotels, including the Elmwood Hotel, and The Martha Washington, served by the railroad stops at Readfield Depot and Maranacook, sprang up around scenic Lake Maranacook beginnning in the 1880s and flourished until the 1950s, when automobile vacations allowed more options for travel. Located on the western shore of the lake three miles from Winthrop, the Belvedere and its housekeeping cabins and cottages offered "commanding views of picturesque Lake Maranacook", according to a 1950s brochure. By then, the establishment advertised itself as a "resort" with a "swimming pool and diving board, woods trails, boating, canoeing, fishing (the lake was stocked with salmon), tennis, ping pong, shuffleboard, badminton," and "bowling and riding and golf...in Augusta," 12 miles away. In the 1930s the hotel was a favorite of Maine Governor Lewis O. Barrows. [No title.]
