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PORTLAND PRESS HERALD - Cousins Island Next Bedroom Community?
QUIET ISLE YAWNS, STRETCHES: IDYL NEAR OVER
By Bertram Clinkston (Staff Writer) ~ Monday, Feb 10, 1958

YARMOUTH. Feb 9, 1958- Quiet shady Cousins Island, 30 months ago a relatively remote summer colony, today is Greater Portland’s newest bedroom community candidate.

The transformation started with the finish of the velvet-smooth, quarter-mile long bridge linking the island’s Sandy Point to the mainland’s Drinkwater Point here.

That was little more than 2 years ago.

And while development is steady and blooming, it is hardly what bridge proponents forecast in 1954 at a State Highway Commission hearing in Augusta.

“A real estate boom which will outstrip anything Maine has seen in many years.” more.....

The million dollar span and connecting roads built by Central Maine Power Co. for access to its $20,000,000 island steam plant, has opened the way for easy island living.

Take two examples:

Arnold R. Strout built an island house and moved from Sanford to be near his job. One reason Howard G. Annas built on the island was to leave Portland and put some space between himself and his work.

Ironically, both Strout and Annas both work for the power firm.

The mainland link has meant a changed way of life to old year-round islanders, to their chagrin and their delight.

It has jumped the permanent population nearly tenfold-from 5 before the bridge to about 50 now. And the still peace of winter living has been shattered.

When the CMP whistle blows at 4:30 pm, the auto exodus resembles Portland’s Congress Street in the rush hour. Dozens of cars and trucks ply the main road, designated Maine Route 13A. Bulldozers growl and cranes rumble on island construction work.

Old timers are glad of the new convenience, but wistful about the insulated content that was lost forever when the bridge opened.

But, as one put it, a short drive over the bridge to town is no comparison to rowing a boat across rough Casco Bay waters and walking 3 miles to a store.

To make sure the island becomes nothing more than a good place to live, a proposed Yarmouth building code specifies that homes will be the only construction permitted.

Cousins and Littlejohn Islands, joined by a causeway, were incorporated by the Legislature in 1925 and have had their own zoning code anyway.

Besides Strout and Annas, owners of new island homes are Mr. a nd MRs. William C. England and Mrs. England’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Crowley. The migrated from Lowell, Mass. And live next door to each other.

Another island breed is John G. Gibson, a young contractor who lives with his wife and children in an old farmhouse they are painstakingly repairing.

Gibson, long a summer visitor, is grateful for the chance to earn a living and live on Cousins Island, too.

“Sniff that air,” he says. “Where else is it as pure as that?”

Gibson, builder of the Crowley and England homes, is chairman of the 5-member island corporation board of overseers, and he’s deputy chief of the islands’ new fire company.

His parents are Mr. And Mrs. F. W. Gibson, Jr., living year-round in their former resort house on the island after moving from Needham, Mass. The elder Gibson is a manufacturer's represenative.

England, investigator for Retail Credit Co., asked for a Maine transfer from Massachusetts as soon as he heard of the bridge going up. The Crowleys moved after Crowely retired.

Strout, a steam plant assitant fireman, explains why he built on the island: “I was tired of driving an hour and a half to work.”

“Now,” he says, “I jump in the car and I'm on the job in three minutes. That leaves an extra hour and 27 minutes to spend with my wife and three kids.”

Annas, former resident of Portland's Hall Street, was just a stone's throw from his job as stock clerk in the power company's Canco road installation.

“I like elbow room and space for relaxing, “ he points out. “I used to get to work in a few minutes,. Now it's an enjoyable drive of 25 minutes.”

One of the island's most widely known reidents is Mrs. Katherine P. Tinker, corporation clerk-treasurer, a year-rounder for six years, and alike most of the others a long-time summer visitor before.

She views the bridge with mixed feelings.

“There is nothing like the convenience we have with the bridge,” she says. “Especially if there's sickness.”

“But, in the old days it was more peaceful-real island life, “ she adds. “Now we live more like mainlanders.” With a trace of regret, she agrees that it is too easy to get into a car or truck and drive to town.

Mrs. Tinker, former professor of astronomy at Vassar, Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges, was summer resorter on Cousins and Littlejohn islands since infancy. She even wrote a Cousins Island history, published in 1941.

Other prebridge year-round residents are Mrs. Edith Widing Yaffee, portraint artist of note, and her mother, Mrs. Elvira Widing; Seth Groves and Murray Pratt. Littlejohn has no winter dwellers.

Summertime population soars now to about 250 on Cousins and 150 on Littlejohn. They've had power since 1956 and when negotiations are over, a new main, strung down the spine of the island, may give residents water rights, according to a Yarmouth Water District spokesman.

For years, Yarmouth allocated $3,500 at annual town meetings for such island services as care of wharves and wells, roads, fire protection and garbage collection. Last year the island asked for and got $4,500.

And last year the town authorized $6,000 to put the Littlejohn-Cousins Island causeway into shape. Yarmouth school buses transport island pupils. CMP hardtopped and maintains 13A.

As if in keeping with island character, there has been no stampede for property.

Except for what the power company acquired and that for new homes, little island land has been traded, according to Mrs. Tinker.

Residents know the iisland could be bustling if the proposed bridge-causeway from Chebeague Island is built, linking Littlejohn-Cousins and thence the mainland.

If that day comes perhaps it will be boom, not boomlet.

Thanks to Jay Selberg for finding and retyping this article! Back to the home page.