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By Bob Rooney
Lockport Home Page Editor
This has been a tough year for yours truly and the period since June has been especially a time of overload in the business of making a living. Most folks as they near a physical or mental breakdown seem to have the sense to shape up or at least go to a doctor to be told what to do. But I haven't been to a doctor since a day leading up to my Army discharge. That by no means indicates my health is great. No, it means I'm 'scared and not too smart. Yet, I still retain enough sense to know some of my failings and to recognize when stress levels are getting too high and "something" is ready to go "pop."
Such was the case on a Thursday afternoon during the final couple hours of field work for my employer over in the eastern part of New York State. I could have responsibly headed back to Lockport to tend to a growing, huge backlog of items for the Lockport Home Page and deal with increasingly irate readers' complaints about a decline in Lockport Page service and updates. But no, I chickened out. I needed to get away. I turned east onto the Thruway and headed east, then northeast ---in fact as far east as I could go in the United States. My objective: wake up on a calm, quiet morning to be the first person in the USA to see the sunrise anywhere in the USA. To be out of touch with Lockport, business, and night telephone calls. To be in touch with the fresh sea air. And to be alone with my camera, my thoughts, and my God. The place for all of this is a little stub of land, northeast of Cutler, Maine.
Cutler, Maine knows about hard times. This tiny seacoast hamlet depends on mariners going out on the Atlantic ocean for lobster, a bit of the lumber industry, growing blueberries, a couple summer months of modest tourism, and what remains of a US Navy installation just southwest of the harbor. There is substantial unemployment. In 1961 the Navy built a gigantic Low Frequency radio station here to maintain secret communications with its far-flung nuclear submarine fleet. They tell me that meant nearly a thousand navy personnel here. But with the need for military cutbacks in spending, Naval Station Cutler was turned over to a civilian contractor to operate. Instead of encoding secret messages here and then transmitting them, the composition and encoding was transferred to Washington, DC and Norfolk, VA from where the messages are transmitted to Cutler where they are sort of just plugged in to the transmitters and sent out all over the world with about 2,000,000-million watts. But now, instead of near a thousand naval enlistees with a wish to dispose of disposable income when off-duty, there are reportedly a bit over a hundred civilians operating and maintaining this massive naval installation. The reduction in staffing has had a serious negative impact on the local economy and property marketability.
NAA Cutler Radio Towers As Seen From Site Of
Historic Fort O'Brien
The towers are more than five miles away.
Station NAA Cutler is the most powerful radio station in the world. I couldn't get any closer than a couple miles to the transmitting site. High security, lots of water, long thick tree lines, and barbed wire fences keep you out. Signs warn you not to enter. Yet when there are about 26 towers, each over 1,000 feet high spread about 3,000 seafront acres, one does get opportunities to see much from miles away, especially with the aid of binoculars and camera telephoto lens' --- both of which I usually have with me when traveling anywhere. And just as in Lockport, people love to talk. After a couple days in Cutler I had gathered, I'm sure, much more information than our Navy would want to tell me. Because of a longtime interest in radio all this was of fascination to me, but I'm not about to bore you with a detailed report. In addition to the massive radio station site, the Navy also operated a conventional Naval Station about five miles away to provide Cold War protection for the communications facility. The Naval Station has been closed down.
I could find no motels in Cutler but was able to rent a room for a couple days a few miles south in little Machias, Maine. There, I arose about 4AM on Saturday morning to motor northeast to little Lubec, Maine (on the border with New Brunswick, Canada) and from there slightly southeast out along the Atlantic shoreline to the lighthouse at Quoddy Head. This stub of land extends further east into the Atlantic than surrounding territories and is established as the eastern-most-place in the entire USA. There I awaited the first sunrise in the United States for September 13th. The area was deserted (the lighthouse operates on "automatic"), the weather was excellent, the sea calm, and the sun was...on time. It made its first peak at the USA a bit after 6AM.
Location Of A Lifetime "First"
On Saturday, September 13th, from site pictured here, a
Lockportian was the first person in the USA to see the sun rise.
The picture I took is the kind of scene they make million-seller post cards from.
But you really have to be there.
I had arrived in the area a good half-hour before sunrise, when the sky was just starting to show lightness over east. Downtown Lubec was dark and quiet except for a single diner. I followed the sign of light flowing out onto a darkened street to enter this venue and give two local story-tellers a new audience. Folks in this area are friendly and talkative. Not hard for a reporter to get a story here...if there is a story.
Outpost On The Edge Of Night - - -And- - -The USA
Nearly everywhere along this so-called "bold coast" are signs of the lobster industry. Many properties have the lobster cages outside apparently waiting for the next ship out. I sampled lobster stew, lobster dainties, and a full lobster dinner (for $15) while in residence. Also residents are justly proud of their blueberry pies. There is a large blueberry crop grown in this area and it's not hard to find an eatery that serves the fruit in some form including blueberry health juice.
Is this a good destination to retreat? Yes, it is! You may find your cell phone won't connect around here. If it does, prepare to pay some heavy "roaming" or extra charges. There is almost no activity on the AM standard broadcast band and the FM stations that come in are from near 50 miles and more distant. There is no daily newspaper, just a weekly. I watched a little TV at the diner in Lubec and the distant signal being picked up from Portland, ME would fade in and out. I don't think they have movie theatres but they do have schools, and thus school plays. The population density is low here so you may not find your favorite religious denomination with a public outpost. But no matter. I got the feeling, at least around sunrise, that one can connect with God very easily here. Just be quiet ...and be here.
"Sunrise At Campobello"
A 32-room "cottage" was one of a couple on land controlled
by the Roosevelt's back in Depression Days.
It is now open for visitors during summer months. Fully restored, it is a
treat to tour! Lots of Roosevelt memorabilia on display, too.
Just over the small international bridge at Lubec is the island retreat of Campobello. This is where the family of former United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and several other rich and prominent families, hung out for the summer months during the first half of the 20th Century. The cottage in the picture was for FDR. It is beautifully restored and maintained. Time spent to tour it is one of the best travel investments you can make. There is no admission charge. Campobello is in New Brunswick and clocks run an hour earlier here. When the Roosevelt's lived here the homes had no electricity. After Roosevelt became President and vacationed here, he would have to go down to a US Navy vessel docked at the harbor out back to make radiotelephone contact with Washington, or anyplace else. There was no telephone service on Campobello. I arrived at Campobello about 10AM and, of course, the sun had already risen. The Roosevelt cottage, you might discern, in the picture above, did not get a view of the sun rising over the water. The only water residents here could see was off the back lawn to the rear and that looked west over to Lubec, USA. To clearly see the "Sunrise at Campobello" Roosevelt's family would have had to travel to the eastern side of the island, perhaps about ten miles away. Touring the facility, I have a feeling that this did not concern FDR too much.
Early Sunday afternoon I took my last looks at the area of Maine known as "down east." Breakfast at Helen's restaurant was finished off with a slice of blueberry pie and some final chatter with the friendly staff. I was soon driving south on the northern stretches of US Route 1 or Interstate I-95. I'd stop at Kennebunkport to view, from a distance, the Bush family summer estate and then start to turn west and back to work on Monday in New York. The Cutler, Maine area is about 12 hours from Central/Eastern New York State. It would definitely be a two-day drive from Lockport.