The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-06-25
The Home Side of Rumford Falls.

L U Ute EU3COr OF me EFeSS:
The business aspect of this young city
has been hitherto the absorbing interest of
all visitors.
The vast possibilities of her magnificent
| water-power, her unlimited resource in
| prospective manufacture, her wealth of op-
portunity, these have been the cardinal
points of observation and discussion.
Upon these important heads the most that
has been opined seems true. Events are
verifying prophecy with certain celebrity,
and the infant settlement Notwithstanding
the financial paralysis that deadens the
| country, is stretching out it's limbs in a
growth that is sturdy, and not too rapid for
| its own permanent health. Rumford Falls
is no Sioux City balloon, nor Fort Payne
bubble. She has not risen by imitation; she
will not go down inacollapse. Her vitality is
in herself. 1t is material. it is solid.
For years the voice of that water power
has appealed to Science and Skill and Ener-
gy to come and take the gifts that there
were offered, and make that wilderness a
center of capital and brain.
They have now come. Men of stamina
and force and will, such as Chisholm and
Pettengill and Bisbee and Eustis and Lin
coin are there, building fortunes and names
for themselves through their tireless energy
in the interests of the growing town.
Belief is the first element of success
There can be no enthusiasm without belief;
and no great work was ever accomplished
without enthusiasm. These men believe
in Rumford Falls. They conceive their
plans with enthusiasm, they execute with
directness and effect.
Within the space of two years two hundred
and sixty buildings have been erected and
many more are now in process of compile
ton. Two years ago the inhabitants num-
bered one hundred, approximately; now two
hundred and sixteen children form the
hopeful element Of population of twelve
hundred.
Of the great works in dams and mills and
projected manufactures the facts are already
widely known. Stuff ce it to say that under
the convoy of such leaders as are there
every enterprise moves steadily on.
This is the business side. But there is the
other, quite as important, the home side.
One alights from the train at the station
in the very midst of the busy hurry, the
noise of machinery, the rather iunbled and
scared looking stores and boarding houses,
(Which have sprung up like mushrooms as
to speed, but not as to permanently and
looking up at the rocky declivities that
bound this portion of the town one gets
the natural impression that this is all.
But these men at the head have kept all
interests in hand from the earliest incep-
ton of their projects. High up on the
heights above the river they first construct
ed numbers of comfortable tenement houses
where the pioneers could live until now in
dividual ownerships have multiplied and
substantial dwellings are springing up in
every direction.
A days trip, and a charming carriage
drive, through the courtesy of Superintend-
emit Lincoln and Hon. Geo. D. Bisbee. re-
Gently gave the writer more intelligent
and altogether delightful idea of this home
side of Rurnford Falls.
Ascending the roads which diverge in op-
posite ways from the bridge, one reaches
the hill-tops to find revelation Here in
spite of forest and ledge streets are regularly
mapped out, many of them cut through
and made traversable, while pretty homes.
several of them commodious mansions are
rapidly usurping the place of tree and
boulder.
One church edifice is here, and two or
three more, with large school house are in
process of construction. This is a very
pdTdulSo Vi IreeuOm Tor Cn6 Cnlldren, who
scramble over the boulders, and play in the
shade of the woods all day, drinking in
health at every pore. The very charm ana
beauty of the place are it's unique location
and altitude. High above all meadow and
marsh miasma, in an atmosphere rich in the
resinous odors of the woods, these heights
are fortunate for homes of the people as
the river level is for capitalists That up
per stratum is whole fresh air fund in it.
self, without the aid of charity The work.
ing man in the mills below may think of his
family up there as well placed, healthy and
happy. There is room for all. 'Society?''
What makes society? Men and women.
Best men and women make best society;
and here are these representative men, not
only establishing their active lines of bust
ness. but bringing their families and max
ing homes and thus creating best society in
and of themselves.
There are grades, here as everywhere.
But whoever comes to this progressive
young town need have no fear that he will
not find his equal.
He will find also, for his physical we'll
being a wide, cool, clean hotel, with a temnt-
ing bill of fare and the courtesy of every
possible attention.
CLARA MARCELLE GREENE.
STATE TOPICS OF INTEREST.