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DiscoverMaineMagazine.com
Skowhegan Bridges Many helpless against the ravages of nature by Brian Swartz
N
orridgewock shipped a bridge downriver to Skowhegan in March of 1849. Unfortunately, by the time it arrived at Skowhegan Island, the bridge was a bit battered — to say the least. From its eastern border with Pittsfield, Canaan originally stretched west to the Norridgewock boundary. People living in Canaan south of the Kennebec River formed Bloomfield in 1814. Perhaps envious of their neighbors’ freedom from Canaan taxation, residents in western Canaan petitioned the Maine Legislature to form the town of Milburn, incorporated on February 5, 1823. Located where an island split the Kennebec, which dropped twenty-eight
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feet over some distance, the place was known by the Norridgewock tribe as “Scoogun,” “Schoughegan,” and other anglicized pronunciations that essentially meant a “watching place” for fish, especially abundant Atlantic salmon. Usage whittled the names to “Skowhegan,” which became Milburn’s name in 1836. Bloomfield merged with Skowhegan in 1861, and Cornville and Norridgewock both lost bits and pieces to Skowhegan through the mid-19th century. Rather than construct a bridge across the gorge downriver from Skowhegan Island, Canaan officials paid Norridgewock contractor William Weston $5,500 in 1809 to build two covered
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bridges from each river bank to Skowhegan Island. Named for the North and South channels that they respectively spanned, the covered bridges served their purposes for a long time. Decades later a narrow suspension bridge dubbed the “Swinging Bridge” opened to pedestrians on the island’s western side. The Maine Central Railroad spanned the Skowhegan gorge with a bridge now open to bicyclists and pedestrians crossing the river from downtown Skowhegan to access the paved Skowhegan Riverwalk. Meanwhile, the first bridge spanning the Kennebec River at Norridgewock opened on October 31, 1810. The Halloween date was probably
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