Newport, ME

At the 2020 census, Newport was a Penobscot County town of 3,133 people wrapped around Sebasticook Lake, a 4,288-acre lake contained entirely within the town. The first settler, John Houstin, arrived in 1800; a permanent settlement followed in 1804, and the village grew at the lake’s outlet around 1808. Newport incorporated in June 1814. The name comes from the old water route between the Penobscot and Kennebec river systems, where a portage near the lake became the “New Port.”

For much of its history, the lake supplied power, food, and a way to move goods before becoming a summer playground. Newport had tanneries, grist and sawmills, a foundry, carriage makers, a woolen mill, condensed-milk plants, and a veneer mill. East Newport added railroad buildings and a Grange Hall, while the lake brought canoeists, rowers, sailboats, fishing, and winter snowmobiles. Today the shoreline and the village still share the same address: one feels like a Maine lake town because the water is in the middle of the history, not off to the side.