Artifact discovery links the past to the present and future
MILO — After eating at McLaughlin’s Family Restaurant, Tom Harrigan, namesake of the Harrigan Learning Center and Museum located just up Park Street, stumbled upon a Native American artifact in the parking lot between the building and his vehicle. What at a quick glance looked like a rock was actually a very weathered ax blade and the discovery got Harrigan — who has amassed a lifetime collection of fossils, artifacts, gems, and minerals — thinking about all the town of Milo has to offer.
Showing the ax blade to McLaughlin’s customers and staff at the counter near the end of breakfast hours, Harrigan pointed out the wear marks. He explained the lines indicate the surface was hit by a harder rock to shape the axe body. The tool is likely thousands of years old.
“It’s not a sharp blade, you can see the front of it has been hit many times,” Harrgian said with all the edges now rounded.
AX BLADE — Tom Harrigan of Milo found this Native American ax blade in the parking lot of McLaughlin’s Family Restaurant on Park Street.
With a notch on the ax, the tool was intended to have a handle. He said the best handles were made of northern hickory due to the flexibility and strength. The handle would be sized appropriately with the hickory split and wrapped around the notch and secured in place with sinew (large animal tendons). The sinew was put on wet and shrinks when dry, strongly securing the hickory handle to the ax.
“This whole town has a lot to offer,” Harrigan said. He encouraged visitors to come to Milo to eat at McLaughlin’s Family Restaurant and other establishments, and head up Park Street to Harris Pond Road to stop by the Harrigan Learning Center and Museum and Milo-Brownville & Points North Visitors Center.
The campus includes the Three Rivers Kiwanis of Milo/Brownville Building, which now has a pool room with six tables.
Taking a break from a game of pool, Kiwanian/Milo Select Board Chair Paula Copeland said a new pool league through the Kiwanis Club features six teams of a half dozen players each with sessions planned for the summer, fall (starting in September), and the winter.
“We are always looking for new members,” Copeland said, with membership proceeds going toward various Three Rivers Kiwanis charitable endeavors. Pool players vary in ability with novices welcomed, as Copeland said everyone is easy going.
KIWANIS POOL LEAGUE — A pool league has started through the Three Rivers Kiwanis Club of Milo/Brownville, with a half dozen tables located in a brand new pool room at the Kiwanis building off Park Street in Milo.
“We have some women playing who have never played before,” she said about the mixed league. “It’s a fun league, it is competitive but friendly competition.”
Participants come from the Milo/Brownville area as well as Dover-Foxcroft, Sangerville, and Millinocket, with some having also recently joined Three Rivers Kiwanis.
Coat racks and wooden lamps hanging down from the ceiling over the tables were made by members.
Three Rivers Kiwanis continues to hold cribbage games on Saturday afternoons, with five games starting at 1 p.m. sharp.
Harrigan mentioned Harris Pond behind the visitor’s center was the site of a Hooked on Fishing, Not Drugs event for Brownville Elementary School fourth-graders to cast their lots and try the activity with Kiwanis members, parents, and other volunteers helping. The adults cleaned the catches and placed them in bags in coolers so the students could take their fish home.
He said parents can come up and have a picnic and their children can go fishing in the pond for the plentiful trout.
“Milo has a lot to offer with their restaurants, 6-table pool room, visitor’s center, and outstanding museum,” Harrigan said. “We seem to have it all.”
Harrigan and his wife Nancy designed and hired Milo resident and business owner Ron Desmarais to build the several structures for them on 2.1 acres of business park land given by the town of Milo.
The Harrigans furnished the buildings, obtained 501(c)3 tax status and a Foundation designation for the Three Rivers Kiwanis Club, then donated the buildings to the club when work was completed. The Kiwanis Foundation Headquarters building was finished in 2013, the museum building was completed in 2016, the Points North Visitors Center and the Pavilion opened in 2017, and the vehicle and storage building was completed in 2018.