Then & Now: The depot that made East Brownfield

At the time of the Civil War, Brownfield, Maine, had only one village, called Brownfield Center. It sat at the northern foot of Burnt Meadow Mountain, with the usual array of stores, shops, mills and churches perched above or along Shepards River, serving the wider agrarian community. The stagecoach from Portland had a regular stop at Brownfield Center, which offered the only hotel within miles. The town hall sat there, and there abode the Brownfield bourgeoisie.

Then, in the spring of 1871, came the railroad. By Memorial Day that year, the tracks of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad had reached within two miles of the spot where Brownfield’s depot was already being built, a mile and a half east of the village. “It makes the face of every business man in the vicinity look flushed with excitement,” noted a correspondent of the Portland Press.