These photos are in the Library of Congress’ FSA/OWI (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information) black & white collection, the same collection that has photos by such famous photographers as Dorothea Lange. They can be viewed on the Library’s internet site. All four were taken in Weld, Maine in the early - mid 1930s.

The federal government bought land in Weld in the 1930s and at some time gave it to the state for a park. WPA or CCC crews built shelters & roads. A photographer could have been sent at this time to document the area. The photos were unidentified as to either location or photographer when I found them. I wonder whether there may be other untitled photos of this area, or if these are unique. Dianna Farnham spoke with Rusty Lee about the photos, and I spoke with Earland Masterman

LC-USF341-002788-B: Looking west, this was taken across the road (Center Hill Rd) from the present Mount Blue State Park headquarters/park manager’s house. The mountains in the distance are the Tumbledown range, comprising (left to right) Tumbledown (three small humps), Little Jackson, and Jackson Mountains. The house at the edge of the field, a log cabin, was built in 1932 and had four owners before the current owner, Rusty Lee, bought it around twenty years ago. Lee worked briefly for the park around 1942 and is one of Weld’s “historians”.

LC-USF341-002790-B: Taken from the same place, looking south over Weld village and Webb Lake towards Dixfield, with its distinctive Sugarloaf (the small pointed mountain to the left of the lake).

LC-USF341-002789-B: Looking west along what is now Maine Rt 156 towards “Twin Pines,” with West Mtn and the Tumbledown range in the distance. According to Earland Masterman, another Weld historian in his 80s and lifelong resident, who currently lives within a few hundred feet of where this photo was taken, the road was paved in 1935 or 36. Because of the open fields and farms “you could see the pines as soon as you came down past the spring.”

LC-USF341-002793-B: Mount Blue, looking easterly from the Buker farm off Temple Road, according to both Lee & Masterman. This is all grown up to woods now.

Conrad Heeschen

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