Permanent settlers began arriving at the village of Flagstaff around the 1820s drawn by the advantageous location along the Dead River floodplain and the availability of waterpower at the outlet to Flagstaff Pond.
In 1928, the Maine legislature passed a bill condemning a 25-mile section of the upper Dead River Valley to inundation, destroying the villages of Flagstaff, Dead River and Bigelow. The bill authorized the construction of a dam at the river narrows at Long Falls and the subsequent creation of Flagstaff Lake. The properties in these towns were obtained by the process of eminent domain, and residents were forced to relocate. In the spring of 1950, Flagstaff Lake was officially created when the gates at Long Falls Dam were closed. It remains a controversial project today. Alan L. Burnell has been coming to the area for over 40 years to hunt, fish, and recreate, and he and his wife now permanently reside in Eustis. Kenny R. Wing of Eustis is the first generation of his family not born or raised in Flagstaff Village and has resided and worked in the Dead River Valley his entire life.  Two Eustis residents write a book; “The Lost Villages of Flagstaff Lake” published by Arcadia Publishing. This is the 60th anniversary of Flagstaff Lake. A new book entitled “The Lost Villages of Flagstaff Lake” chronicling the events leading to the creation of Flagstaff Lake will be released on September 20th . Written by Alan Burnell and life long area resident Kenny Wing it is published by Arcadia Publishing as one of the more than 6000 titles in the Images of America series. The Images of America series utilizes a unique pictorial format to record historical events and this book contains over 200 exhaustively researched photographs that depict the people, buildings and events of these three villages prior to them being flooded by the creation of Flagstaff Lake. Most of the photographs have never been previously published. Long Falls Dam was constructed in 1948 and 1949 and the gates were closed that fall. Flagstaff Lake was at full pond level by the spring of 1950. Authorized in 1928 by the Maine legislature, it was the dream of Walter Wyman who was the founder of the power company we know today as CMP (Central Maine Power). Long Falls Dam at the narrows of the Dead River at Long Falls is approximately 50 feet high and 1200 feet long and impounds an area of approximately 22,000 acres creating one of the largest lakes in the state. The creation of Flagstaff Lake also wrote a sad chapter in our history. The three village settlements of Bigelow, Dead River and Flagstaff were inundated and their residents forced to relocate and scatter throughout the area. Buildings, most of them purchased by CMP prior to the gates in the dam being closed, (CMP was given the power of eminent domain by the 1928 law so could “take” the property after a settlement was reached with the owner) were either razed or re-sold and moved. Some residents, however, not content with the offers made by CMP had not settled on a price at the time the dam was finished and these buildings were left to be flooded and some actually floated off their foundations. CMP sent crews in during the next two winters to remove the remaining trees and burn the flooded buildings after they had been purchased from their original owners. The authors undertook this project in order to retire some long existing myths about people refusing to leave and church steeples sticking (and in some cases continuing to stick) above the lake. Evan “Dutchie” Leavitt and his wife Evelyn were the last to leave the village of Flagstaff in the spring of 1950 but no one else remained. All the residents of the three towns had relocated, the cemeteries had been moved, and the Masonic hall and church in Flagstaff had all been rebuilt in the nearby villages of Eustis and Stratton by CMP. Several buildings, all photo documented in “The Lost Villages of Flagstaff Lake”, such as the “Round Barn” in Dead River, the “Stone House” in Bigelow Plantation, and the Perley Stevens house near Flagstaff village, were actually located above the flood waters of Flagstaff Lake, but they too were all eventually destroyed. The book will be available by contacting the authors in Eustis. A book signing and meet the authors celebration will be held at the White Wolf Inn in Stratton on October 2nd from 5-7:00 p.m. and a book may be purchased at that time. It will also be on sale in many area stores as well as on the internet at the Arcadia Publishing website. If you or someone in your family is interested in a piece of history of Maine’s western mountains you should obtain a copy of this book.  |