To anyone interested in the more rural side of Maine, drive along Route 1 (Coastal) South towards Portland, take a right on Waldo Avenue in Belfast, and continue straight for five minutes. This will place you in Brooks, the town that residents of the area refer to as the “Heart of Waldo County.”
Superficially, there are many towns in the Pine Tree State identical to Brooks, which has a population of just over 1,000 residents, and was founded in the early 19th century. However, there is more to Brooks than meets the Wikipedia page. For one thing, Brooks is outside a larger seaport, Belfast, making it a convenient bedroom community for those who want the perks of an off-the-grid landscape while keeping a white collar job. This has ensured that Brooks remains vital as a community, while towns further from Belfast shrank after the collapse of the chicken farm industry.
Not that Moosehead Trail Highway, the town name for Route 7, would be mistaken for a suburb. The town center is made up of the same buildings that defined small, rural towns across New England for over three centuries; there is a post office, a fire department, and a church, along with such features of modernity as a convenience store, train station-cum-museum and an Odd Fellows Lodge.
Brooks is unique among the other Maine towns because the post office, church and convenience store are all active. Through the bedroom residents with jobs in Belfast, Brooks has stayed active as a community, but remained distinct from the coastal seaport because of its secluded location. Therefore, as an active community not dependent on tourists, but only peripherally agricultural, Brooks makes the impression of an up-to-date time capsule of Maine village life prior to the 1950s.
Naturally, such a community has its limitations, not the least of which is the endemic poverty which continues to haunt many of the blue-collar residents of Brooks and Maine at large. However, the combination of blue collar and white collar work in Belfast makes the level of destitution in Brooks lower than towns further inland, thus alleviating the vicious cycle of abject poverty that can define communities with no chances of upward mobility.
This combination of white collar and blue collar residents is seen in the village co-op, which has a distinctively bourgeois clientele, but also in the Fourth of July celebrations. They are, perhaps, the most distinctive aspect of Brooks, because they show the town’s place as a focal point of the area. As the only town in Waldo County to have an annual parade and picnic, Brooks hosts everyone from the county in a celebration that really does cover the variety of demographics. Having attended the Brooks’ Fourth of July parade, I can say that it really did seem like a unifying moment for the community, where young and old, rich and poor, all gathered to watch the rather unremarkable collection of restored Model T’s and Jeeps putter down the blocked off Moosehead Trail Highway. As each car went by, the crowd clapped politely. But when the American Legion float came into view, preceded by a color guard wearing admittedly disparate uniforms, the crowd gave a yelling ovation.
