Welcome to Lewiston, Maine:

A City of Steeples and Smokestacks

The reading below is a small part of the original petition used by the founding members of Lewiston in 1795 requesting the incorporation into a town. 

_{To the hon Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled. We your petitioners being a committee appointed by the inhabitants of the plantation of Lewiston together with the inhabitants of a Gore of Land adjoining thereunto in the county of Lincoln, We being under disadvantages respecting our roads and other Town order, We pray your Honours to consider our circumstances and incorporate us into a Town in the name of Lee.....}

Courtesy of Douglas Hodgkin

Let me welcome you to this web page. This page was created to answer a question I have asked myself and to fulfill a Geography Course requirement for Urban Geography at the University of Southern Maine. The question I have asked myself was " what is the relationship between the old Mills that line the Androscoggin River in Lewiston, Maine and the diverse religious denominations that also are located in the city?"

My objectives in doing this research was to educate myself in the early history of Lewiston and to have a better understanding of it's Franco-American culture. Also, if anyone has ever seen all of the magnificent religious buildings in this City, I wanted to learn more about them and to find any link between them, the mills and the immigration into Lewiston early in its history.

The methodology I used was pretty straightforward. I first drove around the city in my truck and followed all the roads I never traveled before. That in itself gave me a very different view of the city and the chance to find good photo opportunities for this web page. Secondly, I visited the Lewiston / Auburn College of the University of Southern Maine to gather written information for the content you will be reading.

The highlight of this project for me was to have gained an immense appreciation for the history of this City and it's immigrant background. It is hard to imagine that at one time all these mills, that now are slowly coming back to life with the combined effort of many organizations, were the life force of this "mill town".

Enjoy your tour!