B A C K   T H E N

Union, turn of the century. Ten thousand empty lime casks at the Union Depot of the Georges Valley Railroad, awaiting shipment to Knox County lime kilns. Coopers received a half cent more per cask delivered by rail rather than by team, and in the spring of 1895 one thousand casks were being shipped daily; E. H. Burkett planned to ship 25,000 casks in one month. Extending for eight miles north from the Knox and Lincoln branch of the Maine Central at Warren, the Georges Valley Railroad was built in 1893 to serve proposed new limestone quarries. Although no kilns were ever built at Union, the road did facilitate the operations in Warren of the Rockland and Warren Lime Company, which produced a high-magnesia lime, and also shipped carloads of high-magnesia limestone, in demand by a growing number of sulfite pulp mills.

Text by William H. Bunting from A Days Work, Part 1, A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860–1920, Part II. Published by Tilbury House Publishers, 12 Starr St., Thomaston, Maine. 800-582-1899.

For a story that includes the shipping of lime in the days of sail see: “Droghers, Limers and Packets” at fishermensvoice.com/archives, March 2000.