Museum Receives Grant For Handicap Access

Stratton, Maine.  The members of the Dead River Historical Society are happy to announce they have received a grant of $5,000.00 from the Davis Family Foundation of Falmouth, Maine to install handicap access at the museum in Stratton. This is a two-part project.

1. There are three steps entering the museum and one is very high which is difficult for the elderly and nearly impossible for the handicapped to maneuver. There isn’t enough room to make it into smaller steps but there is room for a ramp.

2. We expanded the museum with a balcony a few years ago and we have exhibits up there and again it is either difficult or impossible for some people to access. We are proud of our museum and want everyone to see all of it. A handicap ramp coming in from the outside and a stair climber to the balcony would solve our problems.  The opportunity to expand the exhibits would be endless and we could get full use of the balcony.

The museum houses artifacts from the drowned villages of Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation as well as Coplin Plantation and Eustis/Stratton. Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation are one of our main displays. At this time these items are in a small room in the museum and hard to see because they are so cramped. And that room has two high steps in order to enter. There is no room for a ramp inside the building without hindering access or entirely blocking off the other exhibits. A stair climber to the upstairs balcony would enable us to expand the Dead River Plantation and Flagstaff Village exhibits. We are fortunate to have members who used to live in and are very knowledgeable of that area. As many of the folks who lived there have passed away we feel it is imperative that we move and expand this exhibit while we have these people to help us, therefore preserving an important piece of history for future generations.

The Dead River Area Historical Society is a non-profit organization, incorporated in the state of Maine in 1979 for the purpose of preserving and promoting interest in the history of the Dead River Area. Artifacts, manuscripts photographs, etc. have been donated or loaned from interested townspeople and descendants of the Dead River Areas. Collections from 1850- with all of the artifacts given from the original families of the Dead River Region. Displays include a collection of old carpentry and logging tools, china, glass, church organ, furniture from native families, a complete schoolroom, a memorial room to the "lost" towns of Flagstaff and Dead River Plantation, the lineage of several native families, and a host of memorabilia from native homesteads.

The Dead River Area Historical Society is open every weekend during July and August from 11 a.m. to 3p.m.