March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Local group’s battle hymn: Save the fort > Landmark in Prospect deteriorating

PROSPECT — Local residents have banded together to raise money to repair Fort Knox, the crumbling coastal compound built nearly 150 years ago to guard the Penobscot River against a British invasion that never materialized.

Water that has leaked through the fort’s sod roof for decades has cracked the brick ceilings and rotted wooden floors inside. Some areas already are closed to the public for safety reasons, and others soon may also have to be closed.

It is the only Maine site on the National Park Service’s top-priority list of damaged and threatened historic landmarks.

“It’s a fairly urgent situation,” said Alan Mooney, president of Criterium-Mooney Engineers in Portland.

“It took 150 years to get to this point of deterioration,” Mooney said. “To double that deterioration probably is going to take only another 10 years.”

Repairs to stop the decay are expected to cost as much as $3 million. So far, the Friends of Fort Knox has raised only about $10,000, but its leaders remain optimistic.

“We’re trying to show that a project of this size can be accomplished with community effort, that we don’t have to depend on the state to do it,” said George MacCleod, the group’s president.

Each year, more than 70,000 people visit the five-sided, granite fortress, which is located on a promontory overlooking a bend in the river. It is along the main route to the Bar Harbor region and offers not only a spectacular view of the river but also plenty of space for recreation.

“(It’s) A great place to take the kids, a great place to be a kid,” said MacLeod.

“People come here and they see this decay and wonder what’s going on,” said Blaine Winchester, a park ranger who is used to complaints from visitors. “They wonder whether we’re just going to let the whole thing cave in.”

The fort, which cost $1 million and took two decades to build, was erected to reassure anxious Mainers after the British seized control of the river in the Revolutionary War and again in the War of 1812. Although the fort was equipped with 10- and 15-inch cannons, no shots were ever fired at an enemy.

The fort was turned over to the state in 1923, but funds for maintenance have been scarce. In 1990 and again in 1991, Maine voters turned down bond issues containing funds for various park projects, including Fort Knox.

Leaders of the fund-raising group acknowledge that the poor economy is the greatest obstacle in soliciting funds from businesses and other potential large-scale contributors.

“None of these big businesses wrote back and said `get lost.’ But they all told us the same thing — we couldn’t have picked a worse time to try this,” said Dean Mayhew, a Maine Maritime Academy historian who serves as an adviser to the group.


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