FORT FAIRFIELD, Maine — Pat Canavan would like to see more small-business owners become her neighbors on Main Street in Fort Fairfield.
Canavan has owned and managed One of a Kind Flowers & Antiques since 2009. Her store is one of a few remaining businesses on Main Street, a once thriving area of town that she and a new group of citizens hope to revitalize.
Recently, Canavan helped organize the Fort Fairfield Revitalization Project, made up of eight business owners and local professionals. The group wants to restore business growth and community spirit, both crucial to the town’s recovery as it moves on from major financial troubles.
“We’ve had our share of distress these last few years. It’s time to turn things around and make this town more positive and a supportive environment for small businesses,” Canavan said.
Efforts to revitalize Aroostook’s downtowns are widespread. In the aftermath of COVID, communities like Presque Isle, Caribou and Houlton are starting revitalization committees and welcoming new restaurants, coffeeshops, retail and specialty shops. The focus on local entrepreneurs comes nearly 30 years after Limestone’s Loring Air Force Base closed, prompting a massive decline in town populations and businesses.
But Fort Fairfield’s history is a little different from the surrounding hubs of Presque Isle and Caribou.
The town became the primary driver of Maine’s potato industry starting in the 1920s, with a quarter of a million acres at its peak in the ’60s. The downtown decline started in the late ’60s and early ’70s, as farm families began leaving and natural disasters destroyed most historic buildings.
Today, only a few Fort Fairfield families still grow potatoes, and the town’s population is down by nearly half. The 2020 census places the town’s population at 3,332, compared to 5,876 in 1960.
Increased competition from Western states like Idaho and more mechanized equipment ultimately drove most farm families and workers to other states. That trend devastated local businesses, recalled lifelong resident David McCrea.
“When I was in high school, my family owned a hardware store on Main Street. Sixty percent of our business came from farmers,” McCrea said. “We’d stock up on thousands of potato bags [for field pickers] and by the weekend they all sold out.”
Fort Fairfield had two railroads — Canadian Pacific and Bangor & Aroostook — running through town, bringing a constant stream of potato shipping during the fall harvest. The industry made Fort Fairfield the hub of Aroostook. Main Street was filled with clothing stores, restaurants, hair salons, car dealerships and hardware and grocery stores. Both local and Canadian customers were bountiful.
“The ’50s and ’60s really were [the town’s] heyday,” said Jim Everett, president of the Frontier Heritage Society in Fort Fairfield.
At one time, the town’s Paramount Theater was the largest movie theater in Maine, with nearly 1,000 seats. Fort Fairfield also boasted the Plymouth Hotel, now an apartment building, where the baseball legend Babe Ruth once stayed. The hotel was destroyed in a 1947 fire. The theater closed in 1957.
A tragic domino effect began in the 1970s when the nearby Aroostook River flooded, knocking out many businesses. As in neighboring Caribou, old wooden buildings burned in fires. To get rid of the blight, town leaders decided to take part in the national Urban Renewal project.
But rather than replace lost buildings, those spaces became public parking lots, which still exist today. Then in spring 1994, a massive flood brought five feet of icy water, stretching across Main Street and costing the town $5 million in damages.
Most businesses had already vacated Main Street due to other floods, fires and the population decline, but 1994 was the final blow, Everett said.
“Now 90 percent of these buildings have apartments where there used to be storefront businesses and apartments upstairs,” he said.
Canavan knows Fort Fairfield can’t live in the past. Online shopping and national retail stores make it harder for local businesses to survive, and the town can no longer depend on a large industry to sustain its identity.
But that won’t stop Canavan and her committee from trying new things.
So far the revitalization committee has met three times. Their kickoff project will be a monthly Fridays in Fort series, featuring local food vendors, music and family activities on Main Street.
The group wants the town council to reinstate an economic development director. The former director led the nonprofit Fort Fairfield Quality of Place Council and the now-defunct Fort Fairfield Chamber of Commerce. The council cut the position in 2017 because of former manager Jim Risner’s legal concerns about the town running a nonprofit.
Now, the Revitalization Project is working with the Quality of Place Council to find grants for new entrepreneurs, storefront development and Main Street revitalization.
Ideally, that type of funding would open up more business spaces and encourage entrepreneurs, Canavan said.
“I think we can get somewhere with this because we’re determined to make it happen,” she said. “Our message is that Fort Fairfield is open for business.”
