Somerset Line Gazette

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How it all began...

Somerset Line Gazette

Why a Newspaper?

MOSCOW – In the first edition of the Somerset Line Gazette, October 26, 2018, a welcome letter from a former newspaper publisher, Terry Drummond (Carney Brook Chronicle 1994-1998) was printed. Like Mr. Drummond, I have heard that community members are discouraged and disappointed by the lack of publishing of human-interest stories from our area. My mother-in-law, Tina Brown often remarked how frequently she waited to see articles in the Morning Sentinel about school happenings, like the Valley honor roll, sports team results, and they usually appeared with typos, wrong names or they sometimes never printed that information at all. I also have complained in my family circle about the tone of television news and newspapers that I found it very depressing and not very good for my soul. I wanted something different. I wanted a community paper that would always include things of local interest and where the tone was more often than not was “good” news, rather than “bad” news. I envisioned a paper that promoted our local non-profits, our school district and our students and informed the citizens about local events and issues. I took that vision, formed by those disappointments and complaints, and I decided that I would start a community newspaper for our area. I have lived in Moscow since 1997 and have tried to be as involved as one can be and work full time outside of the community. I have been fascinated learning about area history around the Wyman Station dam site and manmade Wyman Lake, the former Gulf Stream railroad trestle, the area cemeteries and the log drives on the Kennebec. Of course, the natural beauty in the area speaks for itself. Fortunately, for me, I travel Route 16 home from work and get the pleasure of viewing our communities and the Dam gorge daily. It never gets old to me. We have something special and unique here and I could not be prouder of where I chose to live, and give thanks every day for meeting my husband, Troy who has lived here his whole life. Lucky him!

Why that Name? When I moved to town, I was aware that freight trains used to come as far as Bingham and that at one time there had been a train turntable just off Main Street. As a young girl, one of the things that I found exciting to see and hear about were trains, so as I learned the area history, this became something I was interested in learning more about. When deciding on the name of the newspaper, my intrigue with the trains came to mind. I researched the Somerset Railroad, which according to Wikipedia, (Somerset Railroad (Maine)) “was chartered in 1860 to build north along the Kennebec River from the Maine Central Railroad “back road” at Oakland, Maine.” The railroad had reorganized as the Somerset Railway in 1884, between the Anson and Solon to Bingham expansion was completed. In 1890, the line reached Bingham (Milepost 41). “The reorganized railroad company extended the line to Moosehead Lake in 1906 and built a large resort hotel called the Mount Kineo House. The railroad had fifteen plush upholstered coaches, nine baggage cars, and twelve combination smoking-baggage cars with leather seats in the smoking section. Hotel patron arrived on Pullman cars from large eastern cities and reached the hotel by steamboat from the railroad terminal at Kineo Station.” Unfortunately, times changed and the railroad changed hands, and faster means of transportation became the more common form of travel “the line north of Bingham was dismantled. The last passenger train over the branch ran in September of 1933. The Mount Kineo House was razed in 1938.” While developing the idea of the newspaper and searching for a name, I knew that I wanted it to be something historical and connected to this area. Going with my love of trains and finding out that the dismantled line behind our property used to go to Greenville, my husband’s home away from home, the name Somerset Line Gazette fit the bill in all respects. It also fit the area that I was hoping to cover with the newspaper. Currently, I am only covering the 04920 postal area, but in time, I have hopes to expand towards the Greenville area, following the route of the former Somerset Railway.

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