Wiscasset, ME

Wiscasset is Lincoln County’s seat on the tidal Sheepscot River, a Midcoast town whose old harbor still sets its shape. European settlement dates to the 1660s, and the Revolutionary-era harbor story includes the British warship Rainbow and the later Fort Edgecomb across the river. Main Street’s early architecture, Red’s Eats, and the Chewonki Foundation bring different strands of attention into the same waterfront town; Chewonki has operated on Chewonki Neck since moving there in 1918. The former Maine Yankee nuclear plant, decommissioned in 1996, is another part of the local industrial record. The local shorthand is harbor, courthouse, river, old buildings, and a long working shoreline.