Rangeley, ME

Rangeley is a town in Franklin County, Maine, United States. The 2020 census counted 1,222 residents. Rangeley is the center of the Rangeley Lakes Region, a resort area. The town includes the villages of Rangeley and Oquossoc, as well as the communities of Mooselookmeguntic, Bald Mountain, Mountainview, and South Rangeley. A newcomer can read Rangeley through the overlap of its older landmarks, surrounding geography, and current places. For a newcomer, Rangeley comes into focus through those concrete links among its past, landscape, and current routines.

Rangeley is named after an Englishman, Squire James Rangeley, who inherited a 31,000-acre tract bought from Massachusetts in 1796 by his father. The Phillips and Rangeley Railroad, a narrow gauge common carrier, opened in 1891, becoming part of the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad in 1908. Centrally located between the headwaters of both the Androscoggin River and Kennebec River, the town lies on the eastern shores of Rangeley Lake in the Western Maine Mountains.