Curran Homestead changes name, expands

ORRINGTON, Maine (WABI) - Formerly known as the Curran Homestead, this is the 19th Century Curran Village.

The name changed because the offerings have expanded.

A decision was made to close a historical site and museum in Newfield the organization was also running and move everything here.

“Which is 10 to 12,000 objects, and to move buildings as well, because our idea was to create a museum village here in Orrington/ Holden,” said Bob Schmick, museum director.

“We got a call a few months ago from the folks here at the Curran Homestead to move a very large building from Newfield, Maine to its permanent home here in Orrington. At the time, it seemed like a bit of a far-fetched idea, but the further that we dug into it and the price of lumber is always escalating, I think we’re about triple the price we were a year ago, it was pretty obvious that it was a very good idea from a cost measure, and we are very impressed with how smoothly the whole operation has gone,” said Wade Poulton, Nickerson & O’Day.

Work on the grounds continues every day, including the future home of a carousel.

“The carousel building was a moved structure. The largest move structure. It’s 50 feet wide and it’s 30 feet tall,” Schmick said.

Moving toward a goal of opening back up to the public in 2022.

“An open museum village presenting our artifacts and making them hands-on available to our audience, for the public to come in to experience a lot of these technologies of the 19th century,” Schmick said. “This building here because of the knowledge that we are going to start presenting, letterpress printing, here in Orrington, people have said, I have a printing press from the Ellsworth American, for example, and so this is a real prize for us. It’s not just going to sit around and look at it. We’re going to use it.”

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