Historic Architecture in Sullivan Harbor

In the 1800s, Sullivan Harbor bustled with small businesses as shipbuilding, quarrying, mining, and fishing shaped the town’s economy. Enterprising businessmen built boarding houses and hotels for laborers, while blacksmith shops, livery stables, grocery and feed stores, and a meat shop also flourished. As shipbuilding and fishing gave way to granite quarrying and briefly to mining, many new stores appeared in West Sullivan, often company stores owned by mine or quarry owners. A country store has stood here since before 1889, originally across Route 1. Surviving and remembered buildings include The Lodge, once part of the grand Swiss Chalet hotel, from 1887 to the present; the Hotel Bristol, which stood from 1887 until its demolition in 1923; Waukeag House, from 1887 to 1900; Bayhead Inn, from 1825 to the present; and Cascade House, first built as an inn or boarding house and later converted to grain, feed, and grocery stores. The old Custom House, active from 1789 to the mid-1800s, was where a collector inspected, weighed, and recorded cargos, issued whaling and fishing licenses, and paid lighthouse keepers. Other sites included a blacksmith’s shop at Mill Pond, the Old Granite Store built to keep salt for fishermen bound for the Grand Banks, and a dock used by steamboats.

Sullivan, Maine · United States