SHOREY PARK IN LATE FALL - Bridgton, Maine

Shorey Park: Reflect & Recollect

BRIDGTON, Maine - Visit Shorey Park and the source of Stevens Brook at the Highland Lake southern shoreline. Engage in a little 19^th century industrial archeology by taking a good look at the remnants of the granite block dam at the “outlet” of Highland Lake. Also, the picturesque bridge at ShoreyPark is the remnant dam of the so called “second power site”. Each of these historic dams were built to power a concentration of textile, saw, and door & sash mills that once stood at this site upon Stevens Brook. The entire 2.2 mile run of Stevens Brook connecting Highland Lake with Long Lake once boasted eleven power sites and manufacturing industries.

These grand manufacturing buildings erected to produce woolen textiles, tanneries, doors & sashes, furniture, shovel handles, stockings, lumber, and also including foundries, machine shops, textile finishing and wool carding mills have all been lost to fire or demolition, with the exception of the 1868 Cabinet & Furniture Mill of Lewis Smith at the corner of Mill Street and Smith Street; and you must go by for a good look. You will notice the extraordinary water turbine placed along the front yard of the former mill. Today the historic mill building is one of the “bonfires” of the Bridgton’s creative class economy as envisioned by artist Stephen Oliver and Affinity Arts www.affinityarts.info. As Stephen Oliver states, “My life and work focuses on how art and design can make a difference in the world. I am establishing Affinity Arts as a creative retreat and incubator in an old mill building in Bridgton”.     

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