Cool & Connected: Millinocket, Maine

Canoes in Millinocket Lake with Mt. Katahdin in the background, Millinocket, Maine — Mount Katahdin and Millinocket Lake are among the beautiful natural amenities that attract visitors to Millinocket.

Millinocket, a town of more than 4,000 people, is in Penobscot County, Maine, just southeast of Mount Katahdin and Baxter State Park. Our Katahdin, a nonprofit that promotes community and economic development in the region, requested the Cool & Connected planning assistance to leverage existing resources, promote regional collaboration, and support economic development in conjunction with its projects.

As a gateway town to Mount Katahdin and the northern end of the Appalachian Trail, Millinocket receives most of the trail's through-hikers at the end of their journeys and hosts tourists enjoying outdoor activities throughout the year.

The Great Northern Paper Company, historically Millinocket's biggest employer, once hired many of the town's high school graduates, but it shuttered in 2008 and took with it the town's major industry. In the wake of the paper mill's closing, Millinocket sought ways to diversify its economy and use its assets of natural beauty and broadband access to attract new residents and businesses.

In 2017, some of Millinocket was connected to high-speed internet, but many residents lacked reliable service in their homes and therefore went to the library or the downtown Wi-Fi corridor to access public Internet. With support from Maine's ConnectMe Authority in 2016, Millinocket surveyed the community and developed a broadband roadmap to improve the town’s broadband opportunities and attract more entrepreneurs and teleworkers.

Our Katahdin acquired a dilapidated building on the town's main street in 2016 with the plan to use federal grant money to renovate it as a community space. In 2017, the organization also acquired the 1,400-acre site of the former paper mill with the plan to redevelop the land and reconnect it with Millinocket's main street.

Building being renovated on Millinocket, Maine's main street — Our Katahdin is renovating this building in downtown Millinocket.

The Cool & Connected planning assistance team of contractors and staff from EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) visited Millinocket in 2017 to meet with local business owners, elected officials, and community members and gather public input on a vision for downtown revitalization spurred by broadband access.

The resulting action plan laid out specific steps for Millinocket to achieve its overarching goals: expanding digital access, developing a community space downtown, making downtown more attractive, and engaging residents and community organizations.

Community members worked to implement the plan by:

expanding digital literacy programs,
improving public space on the town's main street to attract more visitors and residents, and
reconvening the regional Broadband Committee to collaborate on broadband goals with Medway and East Millinocket.

Old mill building in Millinocket, Maine — The mill site's former administrative building could be repurposed for new businesses or for community space.

In February 2018, Our Katahdin announced an anchor tenant to catalyze redevelopment of the mill site, bringing 100 jobs to the region. The group also proceeded with rehabilitating the downtown building and solicited public input on potential uses for the building, including perhaps shared retail space for local vendors, co-working offices for entrepreneurs and small businesses, or some other community use.

In spring 2018, the Millinocket Memorial Library received a grant to develop a digital literacy curriculum and to purchase laptops that residents can borrow and take home. The library offered classes on computer and internet basics, social media, and coding. Learning these skills can help people start local businesses that can provide goods or services far outside of Millinocket or get jobs that require technological skills. Another new initiative, the Katahdin Gear Hub, allowed residents borrow a bicycle or tools to fix their own bicycle, to encourage more people to bike around downtown or to nearby lakes and forests.

Lessons Learned

Access to high-quality broadband service is necessary for small towns to be competitive in attracting new residents and businesses.
Natural beauty and outdoor recreation opportunities, strong broadband service, and a lively downtown can make a community appealing for young people to stay in or move to.
It's not enough to have broadband service: the community needs to work to help all residents and business owners get online.
Better use of broadband can lead to quality of life improvements, such as reusing local vacant or underused properties, reducing pressure on working lands, and improving air and water quality.

Learn more about how Millinocket created plans for its future, and how the Cool & Connected workshop helped, in a podcast from Smart Growth America, EPA's contractor for this program.

Published October 2020.