Bangor Sawmill

Mile 56.83 at Meteghan on the Yarmouth Subdivison

History

This sawmill was built by Joe Maillet the as a water powered sawmill on the Meteghan River in 1870. It was soon purchased by the Parker Eakins Company of Yarmouth. The mill was usually known by the name of the manager who ran it, so over the years it mill was variously called the Raymond, Hilton, Deming, Saulnier and Comeau Mill. A 2,100 foot spur was constructed about 1890 to connect to the DAR mainline just east of the Meteghan Station. Flatcars loaded with lumber were loaded at the mill and moved to Meteghan Station for pick up by trains delivering them to Yarmouth for export. Mill operators sometimes economized by using oxen to shunt loaded flatcars from the mill to the Station. The mill was still shipping 20 to 30 carloads per year on the DAR in the late 1960s. Eventually converting to diesel power, the mill kept the water turbine as a back-up power source making the mill one of the last working water powered mills in Eastern Canada. The mill closed in the 1980s but was restored and opened as a museum in 2001.

Gallery

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  Bangor Mill with DAR flatcar in 1915

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  Bangor Mill crew beside mill siding, circa 1915

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  The restored mill from across the river, 2002

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  The dam and turbine of the restored mill, 2002

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  Ramp for finished lumber, siding location was to right, 2002

Footnotes and References

1931 Dominion Atlantic Railway Employee Time Table - June 21, 1931, page 7

1969 Memorandum of General Information Corporate Info, page 15

External Links

Bangor Sawmill Museum website by Bob Davidson