Bangor Sawmill

DAR flatcar on the south side of the Bangor mill in 1915. Photo courtesy Gerald Comeau

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. It was powered by a "Little Giant" water turbine made in Picton, Ontario. A 2,100 foot spur was constructed about 1890 to connect the mill 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. The mill burned on three occasions but was reconstructed on the same site each time. The final owner was Thomas Comeau who bought the mill from the Parker Eakins Company. He converted it to diesel power, but fortunately kept the water turbine as a back-up power source, making the mill one of the last working water powered saw mills in Canada. The mill closed in the 1980s but was restored and opened as a museum in 2001.

Gallery

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  Bangor Mill from south with DAR flatcar in 1915

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  Bangor Mill crew beside mill siding, circa 1915

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  The north side of 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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  Detail of the water turbine and dam in use, 2002

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  East end of mill with Ramp for finished lumber, 2002. Mill siding location was to right

Footnotes and References

Barbara Robertson, Sawpower: Making Lumber in the Sawmills of Nova Scotia, Halifax: Nova Scotia Museum and Nimbus Publishing, 1986.

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

1969 Memorandum of General Information Corporate Info, page 15

External Links

Bangor Mill Museum Facebook Page

3-D Graphic Model of Bangor Mill

Bangor Sawmill Museum images by Bob Davidson