Fort Kent, ME

Fort Kent is the main village CDP in the Aroostook County town of Fort Kent, at the confluence of the Fish and St. John Rivers along the New Brunswick border. The 2020 census counted 2,413 residents in the CDP; the whole town had 4,067. The town incorporated in 1869, after Acadian French settlers began arriving around 1829, and the border tension of the Aroostook War led to a fortified outpost named for Governor Edward Kent. The preserved blockhouse still stands near the river meeting point.

The University of Maine at Fort Kent began in 1878 as the Madawaska Training School, created to prepare teachers for the St. John Valley, and remains tied to education and Acadian culture. The Fort Kent Railroad Station opened in 1902 as the northern terminus of the Fish River Railroad and now houses a railroad-history museum. Fort Kent's local scoop is a Maine border village where rivers, a surviving Aroostook War fort, a university campus, and a railroad museum share one small address.