History:
The Abnaki Indians set up hunting and fishing camps alongside the areas 111 lakes and ponds until 1810. It was not until a few years later that Rangeley Lake would see any permanent “white man” settlement. The first family was from Avon – Luther Hoar, his wife, Eunice, and eight children, including 7 week-old baby Eunice. In late March of 1817, they trekked 26 miles on foot through the woods and snow to Rangeley Lake with all of their possesions on two “moose sleds” and the baby strapped into a large wooden bread mixing trough. They reportedly survived on fish and game and lived quite “primitively”. The following year, two other families settled near the lake, and thus began the “Lake Settlement.”
They were followed by well-to-do “flatlanders, namely Englishman, Squire James Rangeley, who inherited a 31,000-acre tract bought from Massachusetts in 1796 by his father. He arrived in 1825 to establish an estate giving extensive land to settlers. He built a sawmill, a gristmill, a two-story mansion, and a ten-mile road to connect his property with the rest of the world. Rangeley resided here for 15 years, then when his daughter died, he sold the property and moved to Portland.
Farms produced hay, wheat, oats, barley and potatoes, with cattle grazing the hills. Logging became a principal industry, with booms of logs towed by steamboat across the Rangeley lakes, then guided down rivers in log drives. The region developed in the 1900s into a seasonal resort area with camps, cabins, summer homes, inns and hotels.
Around the turn of the century, these were the best-known native brook trout waters in the world. Later, stocked landlocked salmon joined the trout as the fish of choice and made the area the ‘fly casting mecca’ of the region, prized amongst Anglers, including former president Herbert Hoover.
The late ’20s and ’30s were known as the “Golden Age” for hotels and the larger sporting camps. Families escaped the heat and dirt of the big cities to “summer” at their favorite resort in Rangeley, a tradition which often spanned several generations.
Unfortunately, World War II would change Rangeley’s course of history by not only taking its young men, but also by halting the summer vacations of many who were devoting their days to less frivolous activities to aid the war effort.
Source of information and quotes: A Chronological History of the Rangeley Lakes Region by Edward Ellis,1983.
