B A C K   T H E N

Ripley Village

Ripley Village, the commercial center of an agricultural town, is shown circa 1920. (Ripley bounds Cambridge to the north.) The little girl standing at the intersection of Main Street (now State Route 23) and Water Street is in no imminent danger, as the only vehicle in sight–parked at Ramsdell’s General Store–is the trusty EIC Maxwell.

Ramsdell’s store, the low-roofed stable beyond it, and Hamilton’s dry goods, beyond the stable, are all gone now. However, the building then serving as Hanson’s General Store, glimpsed at far left, still stands, as does the United Methodist Church, now minus its steeple. The second floor of Hanson’s store was one of two dance halls in town; once there had been three. Ripley boasted its own telephone company and the Crocker Free Library, with 2,339 volumes, located for a time upstairs at Hamilton’s.

In 1925 the five district schools held contests for sighting and identifying the most birds, flowers, and automobiles. In 1927 students at the Mills School, all under age twelve, raised $1.85 from a corn roast to buy rope for swings and then went into the woods with sharp tools and cut the poles for the swing frame.

Text by William H. Bunting from Maine On Glass. Published by Tilbury House Publishers, 12 Starr St., Thomaston, Maine. 800-582-1899.

Maine On Glass and prints of the photographs are available through the Penobscot Marine Museum: PenobscotMarineMuseum.org.