Mars Hill, ME

Mars Hill is an Aroostook County town at the foot of Mars Hill Mountain, on the border with Wicklow Parish, New Brunswick. The 2020 census counted 1,360 residents. The region is mostly agricultural, with fields running up to the mountain and the international boundary less than a mile east of its base. Mars Hill Mountain rises to 1,748 feet, giving the town a landmark that is also a ski hill, hiking route, and wind-power site. The mountain sets the town's whole scale.

Hezekiah Mars camped at the mountain for three years, and the town took his name. Big Rock Ski Area grew on the western slope after local residents developed a ski hill in the 1960s. The International Appalachian Trail crosses the mountain, and a 28-turbine wind facility began operating along the summit ridge in 2007. Mars Hill's story runs on several tracks at once: potato-country agriculture below, winter recreation on the slope, a cross-border horizon, and turbines turning above it all.