|
Houlton is a town in Aroostook County, Maine, on the United States – Canada border, located at . As of the 2010 census, the town population was 6,123. It is perhaps best known as being at the northern terminus of Interstate 95 and for being the birthplace of Samantha Smith, a goodwill ambassador as a child during the Cold War. The town hosts the annual Houlton Agricultural Fair. Houlton is the county seat for Aroostook County, and as such its nickname is the "Shire Town." The Houlton High School sports teams are named "The Shiretowners." The Meduxnekeag River flows through the heart of the town, and the border with the Canadian province of New Brunswick is east of the town's center. Houlton was the home of Ricker College which closed in 1978.〔(Ricker College Timeline )〕 The primary settlement and center of the town is designated as CDP with the same name, Houlton. The headquarters of the federally recognized Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians is based here.〔("Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians." ) ''Region 1: EPA New England.'' Retrieved 30 July 2013.〕 ==History== The area was occupied for thousands of years by varying cultures of indigenous peoples. In historic times, these were the Algonquian-speaking Maliseet people. Decades after the American Revolutionary War, Anglo-American pioneers Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton started a village. They named it for Houlton, who had moved to Maine in 1807 from the more populated part of Massachusetts.〔(George J. Varney, ''History of Houlton, Maine,'' Boston 1886 )〕 Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820 and became an independent state. In 1828 the United States government established Hancock Barracks, a military post, in the area. Houlton officially incorporated as a town in 1831. When the Aroostook War flared in 1839 over the border with Canada, three companies of the 1st Artillery Regiment manned Hancock Barracks under Major R. M. Kirby. Major Kirby helped to restrain the twelve companies of militia that Maine sent there from starting a shooting war. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty settled the boundary dispute in 1842, and the Army abandoned Hancock Barracks in 1847. The U.S. Army installed its first transatlantic〔()〕 Radio Intelligence Station in Hancock, Maine,〔(MI-8 )〕 during World War I. The Houlton Radio Intelligence Station intercepted German diplomatic communications, primarily from its Nauen Transmitter Station. MI-8 created the Radio Intelligence Service, using selected Signal Corps personnel for the sole purpose of supporting strategic intelligence through radio intercepts during World War I. The United States intelligence services built Houlton as the first unit of its type, and its success helped to lay the foundation for many more United States long-range radio-intercept stations. On 7 January 1927, AT&T initiated the first transatlantic commercial telephone service,〔()〕 linking New York and London. The AT&T Transoceanic Receiver Station was located at the end of Hand Lane, , two miles west of the town center. The massive receiving antenna,〔()〕 over three miles long and two miles wide, straddled what is now Interstate 95 in Maine four miles west of the center of Houlton. The receiver station worked with the large long-wave transmitting facility of AT&T located at RCA 〔(Radio Central )〕 in Rocky Point, New York. The receiver station received the longwave telephone signal from the British General Post Office Rugby transmitting station near Rugby, England.〔()〕 The US Army established Houlton Army Air Base in 1941 immediately adjacent to the Canadian border.〔()〕 Prior to the United States' entry into World War II, American army pilots flew planes to the base. They could not fly the planes directly into Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth, because that would violate the official United States position of neutrality. Local farmers used their tractors to tow the planes into Canada, where the Canadians closed the Woodstock highway so that aircraft could use it as a runway. The United States entered the war on 7 December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot, officer George Newall Harrison,〔()〕 died on 5 December 1942 when he crashed 500 yards south of the runway while ferrying a Hudson Bomber to Britain.〔()〕 Survivors buried his body in the Evergreen Cemetery plot for veterans. Few other New Zealand casualties from World War II were buried in the United States of America. His 19-year-old radio operator, Sergeant Henry Bordewick],〔()〕 also died and was buried there; he was from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The American Legion post in Houlton maintains both these Commonwealth War Graves. Houlton Army Air Base closed in July 1944. In 1944, the Army adapted a major part of the Houlton Army Air Base for use as prisoner of war internment in Camp Houlton. At its peak, the internment camp held 3,700 German prisoners of war. Forcing prisoners of war to work violated the Geneva Convention; however, they could volunteer to work. Camp Houlton provided laborers for local farms to harvest peas, pick potatoes, and do other labor. For security reasons, the government did not allow every prisoner of war to work on the farms. Most prisoners selected to work did not want to harm their captors or cause trouble. Many farmers came to consider the prisoners of war who worked their fields as good laborers rather than enemy soldiers. They paid the prisoners $1/day in scrip, which the prisoners could spend at the post exchange, the base store, to buy toiletries, tobacco, chocolate, or beer. After the prisoners repatriated, the Army closed Camp Houlton in 1946. The site was redeveloped as Houlton International Airport. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Houlton, Maine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|
