Houlton, Maine

 town (New England / New York), county seat

The town was settled by Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton and named for Joseph Houlton, who immigrated from Massachusetts in 1807. In 1828, the U.S. government established a military post, the Hancock barracks, and Houlton was officially incorporated as a town in 1831. In 1839, when the Aroostook War flared up, Houlton was manned by three companies of the 1st Artillery Regiment under Major R. M. Kirby. Major Kirby helped to restrain the twelve companies of militia that Maine sent there from starting a shooting war. The post was abandoned in 1847, five years after the Webster-Ashburton Treaty settled the boundary dispute.

Houlton was the location of the first transatlantic Radio Intelligence Station installed by the U.S. Army MI-8 Radio Intelligence Service in World War I. The Houlton Radio Intelligence Station intercepted German diplomatic communications primarily from its Nauen high power radio station. The Radio Intelligence Service (R.I.S.) was created during World War I by MI-8 using selected Signal Corps personnel for the sole purpose of supporting strategic intelligence through radio intercept. Houlton was the first unit of its type built by the US intelligence services, and its success helped to lay the foundation for many more US long range radio intercept stations.

On January 7, 1927, AT&T initiated the first transatlantic commercial telephone service; linking New York and London. The AT&T Transoceanic Receiver Station was located at the end of Hand Lane, 46°07′37″N 67°53′03″W / 46.1270°N 67.8841°W / 46.1270; -67.8841, two miles west of town center. The massive receiving antenna, over three miles long and two miles wide; straddled what is now I-95, four miles west of town center. The receiver station worked with AT&T's massive long wave transmitting facility located at RCA Radio Central in Rocky Point, New York. The receiver station received the longwave telephone signal from the British General Post Office Rugby transmitting station near Rugby, England.

Houlton Army Air Base was established in 1941 immediately adjacent to the Canadian border. Prior to the U.S. entry into the war, planes were flown to the base but U.S. military pilots could not fly the planes directly into Canada—a member of the British Commonwealth—because that would violate the official U.S. position of neutrality. Local farmers then used their tractors to tow the planes into Canada, where the Canadians then closed the Woodstock highway so it could be used as a runway by aircraft. The air base closed in July 1944.

Pilot Officer George Newall Harrison of the Royal New Zealand Air Force was buried in the Evergreen Cemetery veterans’ plot after the Hudson Bomber he was ferrying to the UK crashed 500 yards south of the runway on 5 December 1942. He is one of just a few New Zealand casualties from World War II to be buried in the USA. Buried next to Harrison is his 19 year old radio operator, Sergeant Henry Bordewick from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Both of these Commonwealth War Graves are carefully maintained by the Houlton American Legion post.
Cary Library, a Carnegie library designed by John Calvin Stevens

In 1944, a major part of the air base was made into Camp Houlton, a prisoner of war (POW) internment camp. At its peak, 3,700 German POWs were imprisoned at the camp. It was a violation of the Geneva Convention to force POWs to work; however, they could volunteer to work. Camp Houlton provided laborers for local farms to harvest peas, pick potatoes and other work. Not all POWs were allowed to work on the farms for security reasons. Most of those who were selected to work had no interest in harming their captors or causing trouble. Many farmers came to see the POWs who worked their fields as good laborers rather than enemy soldiers. The prisoners were paid a dollar a day in scrip that they could spend at the post exchange, the base store, for toiletries, tobacco, chocolate, and even beer. The base was closed in 1946 after the prisoners repatriated. The site is now the home of Houlton International Airport.