Shirley (Maine)

Shirley
Town Hall, Shirley
Location in Maine
Shirley
Basic data
Foundation :	March 4, 1834
State :	United States
State :	Maine
County :	Piscataquis County
Coordinates :	45 ° 22 ′  N , 69 ° 37 ′  W Coordinates: 45 ° 22 ′  N , 69 ° 37 ′  W
Time zone :	Eastern ( UTC − 5 / −4 )
Residents :	233 (as of 2010)
Population density :	1.7 inhabitants per km 2
Area :	140.22 km 2  (approx. 54 mi 2 ) of which 138.07 km 2  (approx. 53 mi 2 ) are land
Height :	319 m
Postal code :	04485
Area code :	+1 207
FIPS :	23-68140
GNIS ID :	0582724
Website :	sites.google.com/site/townofshirleymaine/
Post Office of Shirley, Maine

Shirley is a town in Piscataquis County in the state of Maine in the United States . In 2010, 233 people lived there in 248 households on an area of ​​140.22 km².

geography

According to the United States Census Bureau , Shirley has a total area of ​​140.22 km², of which 138.07 km² are land and 2.15 km² are water .

Geographical location

Shirley is located in southwest Piscataquis County and borders Somerset County . The main arm of the Piscataquis River has its source in Shirley . There are also two other rivers, the Wilson and the Bog Stream. There are several smaller lakes in the town area, such as Shirly Pond in the north and Ordway Pond in the south of the area. The surface is flat, without any higher elevations.

Neighboring communities

All distances are given as straight lines between the official coordinates of the places from the 2010 census.

• North: Northwest Piscataquis , Unorganized Territory , 49.5 mi
• Northeast: Greenville , 8.2 mi
• East: Northeast Piscataquis , Unorganized Territory, 46.2 mi
• Southeast: Monson , 7.4 mi
• South: Blanchard , Unorganized Territory, 7.9 mi
• West: Northeast Somerset , Somerset County, Unorganized Territory, 14.7 mi

City structure

There are several settlement areas in Shirley: High Cut , Lower Shirley Corner , Quarry , Shirley Mills , True's Mills , Upper Shirley Corner, and Webster .

climate

The mean mean temperature in Shirley is between −12.2 ° C (10 ° F ) in January and 18.3 ° C (65 ° F) in July. This means that the place is around 9 degrees cooler than the long-term average in the USA. The snowfalls between October and May are up to two and a half meters, more than twice as high as the average snow depth in the USA; the daily sunshine duration is at the lower end of the range in the USA.

history

In 1825, Captain C. Cushman was the first settler to come to Shirley, as did Joseph Mitchell, Marriages and David Marble. Cushman settled in the north and obtained wooden planks from Monson with the help of a hand sled. In 1829 Shaw and Jabez True acquired the western area of ​​what is now the town, which was also the starting point. Jabez True built buildings for future settlers and a first sawmill (Shirley Mills). In 1834 the place had enough inhabitants to apply for incorporation . The place should initially be called Somerset, but the current name was chosen, probably after Governor William Shirley , who held the office from 1740 to 1749 and from 1753 to 1756. According to another opinion, the name goes back to the birthplace of J. Kelseys, the member of parliament. At the first meeting, Elder Orrin Strout was named as a town clerk, and Charles Loring was named one of the select men .

In 1835 the town sold logging rights to old growth forests for $ 2,800 to build a school. With only 271 residents, Shirley owned a kindergarten and a school that went up to 5th grade . In 1848 the neighboring village of Wilson was incorporated, which today forms the eastern part of the municipality. This also added Shirley Corner on the little Wilson Stream with another mill right, a hotel and the later Shirley post office.

In 1850 the journalist Edgar Wilson Nye and from 1881 editor of Boomerang was born here, probably the best-known figure from Shirley in the USA. In 1850, Clark Carter owned $ 2,000 worth of land in the Shirley area, placing him in the middle of the northeast landowner group. With his considerable resources, he supported his daughter Sarah, who tried to set up as a hat maker . To do this, she settled in various places in Maine, but kept returning to Shirley for extensive visits. Shirley, especially for women, probably offered no basis for an existence of this kind.

In addition to logging, residents of the village also led hunting parties through the forests, which were still extensive at that time, in the second half of the century. As Thomas Sedgwick Steele reported in 1880, a certain Bowley is considered to be the first of these guides who tried to grasp the possibilities of the beginning tourism. In 1876 Shirley had 206 inhabitants, in 1880 there were already 253.

On August 22, 1917, a devastating fire struck the Shirley Lumber Company, causing $ 30,000 in damage. In 1933 the Shirley (Maine) Lumber Co. had to cease operations, which meant that practically all employees of the 200-souls town lost their jobs.

Until the Great Depression , which hit the place in 1929, the economy of the place was based on the wood of the area. But now the jobs at the local sawmills and in road construction disappeared. In a completely hopeless situation, 30 families came together who specialized in knitting and founded the Shirley Industries corporation . Robert Thomas Moore , who had been a frequent summer guest at Shirley, offered a knitting machine to every family that participated. Production got off to such a good start that in 1934 workers were paid between $ 18 and $ 32 a week. The sale of the goods was handled from 1937 through Dennison Brothers in New York. In their pride in what they had achieved and the fact that they were not dependent on any state aid, the residents sent President Roosevelt six pairs of their locally produced socks.

Although the corporation was dissolved in the 1950s, many of the buildings are still open. In 2000 there were 183 inhabitants, ten years later 233.

Population development

Census Results - Town of Shirley, Maine
year	1800	1810	1820	1830	1840	1850	1860	1870	1880	1890
Residents					190	250	282	206	253	291
year	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990
Residents	248	334	273	197	236	212	214	174	242	271
year	2000	2010	2020	2030	2040	2050	2060	2070	2080	2090
Residents	183	233

Economy and Infrastructure

traffic

The Maine State Route 6 , leads north to south through the territory of Shirley.

Public facilities

There are no medical facilities or hospitals in Shirley. Closest facilities for Shirley residents are in Dover-Foxcroft.

In Shirley, there is a library in the Town Office building.

education

The Shirley School Department is responsible for school education in Shirley.

Personalities

sons and daughters of the town

• Frank Nye (1852-1935), politician

Web links

Commons : Shirley, Maine  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

• The community site (English)
• Shirley on maine.gov
• Shirley on City-data.com
• History of Shirley, Maine , Boston 1886.

Remarks

1. ↑ Shirley in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey , accessed December 22, 2019
2. ↑ Maine 2010 Census Results ; official publication of the Census Authority, (English; PDF; 32.5 MB)
3. ↑ Coordinates of the locations of the Census Authority 2010
4. ↑ Shirley, Maine. In: mainegenealogy.net. Retrieved December 22, 2019 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Shirley, Maine (ME) profile: population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, news, sex offenders. In: city-data.com. www.city-data.com, accessed on December 22, 2019 . 
6. ^ Ava Harriet Chadbourne: Maine Place Names and the Peopling of its Towns , Wheelwright, 1955, p. 169.
7. ↑ Boomerang. Laramie's Voice since 1881
8. ↑ Wendy Gamber: The Female Economy. The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930 , University of Illinois Press, 1997, pp. 11f. and 42.
9. ^ Thomas Sedgwick Steele: Canoe and Camera. A Two Hundred Mile Tour through the Maine Forests , Orange Judd Company, New York 1880, p. 35.
10. ^ Hardwood Company: Hardwood Record , 1918.
11. ↑ George Derby, James Terry White (Ed.): The National Cyclopædia of American Biography , 1949, p. 319.
12. ^ Report of the State Commissioner of Education of the State of Maine , Department of Education, Augusta 1940, p. 57.
13. ↑ Population 1840-2010 according to census results
14. ^ Library - Town of Shirley Maine. In: google.com. sites.google.com, accessed December 22, 2019 .