Milford, ME

Milford is a Penobscot County town across the river from Old Town, with the Penobscot River and Milford Dam defining its western edge. The 2020 Census counted 3,069 residents. The town was known as Sunkhaze Plantation before incorporation as Milford in 1833, and a major nineteenth-century sawmill used the river's water power. The dam still ties Milford to the Penobscot's working history, while the river connects the town to Old Town and the Penobscot Indian Island Reservation.

The other half of Milford's map is Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. Sunkhaze Stream and its tributaries wind through raised peat domes, wet meadows, and floodplain forests before reaching the restored Penobscot River. Brook trout, American eel, beaver, and wood turtles are part of that wetland setting. Milford therefore carries two very different kinds of river history at once: a dam and sawmill town on one side, and a broad peat-bog refuge on the other. The contrast is especially clear in the town's two names: Milford for the settled town, Sunkhaze for the wetlands.