I was born on Sept. 8, 1931 and have lived in the Town of Eustis all my life except for the four years that I served my country in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, 1951 to 1955.

I have seen a lot of changes in the area. Being raised on a farm on Eustis Ridge I had a good view of the mountains around and the valley below. I saw the Flagstaff Lake created by Central Maine Power Company, the Sugarloaf ski area come into view, the Cathedral Pines developed into a campground, School Administration District #58 formed and a wood turning mill grow to a work force of 135 employees.

There was a local community building which also served as a theater offering movies on Saturday nights and a place to hold town meetings.

The town supported four filling stations, five grocery stores, a clothing store, a drug store, a barber shop, a beauty shop, two post offices, two banks, a pool hall, three chainsaw shops, three boarding houses, seven apartment buildings, a low income housing development and a senior citizen complex. There were three hotels, five restaurants, two motels, and two new church buildings built. One old church building turned into a historical society building. There were four dairy farms, a water-powered sawmill, a water-powered dam, a diesel-powered plant, a bio-mass plant and also a computer-operated sawmill.

These are businesses and buildings that would take me a long time to put a time and date to each one. And they are just a few of the changes that the march of progress has caused buildings and businesses to come and go in the last 78 years of my life.

Some of the changes were due to the fire that took a whole downtown block that housed three stores, the theater, town office space, a lunchroom, post office, a boarding house and one private home. Other buildings, barns, homes and mills were torn down to make room for new.

In 1941 many young men went off to war. Two of our brave young men did not return.

The lumber operations went through horses and bucksaws to tractors and skidders and gas-powered chainsaws to harvesters; through bucksaws to chainsaws to whole tree chippers.

Wood that used to be driven down the river to the mills was now trucked down the highway. Gone were the days of the river drivers. A hardier class of men would be hard to find today.

In the early to mid-1950s a Rev. Burleigh Sylvester came to town bringing the Gospel of Salvation through Jesus Christ. This was and remains the most important event to occur in the Town of Eustis. For this change, I am most thankful.

With all of these changes and all of the years of working, playing and just plain living in the town of Eustis, I would not want it any other way.

I love my home town.
John Caldwell is a resident
and selectman of Eustis.