HOULTON, Maine — Heather Steeves of Hartford, Connecticut, always looked forward to summertime trips to visit her relatives in Caribou when she was a child.
Not only did her great-grandparents have a swimming pool, she recalled on Thursday, the trip always included a visit to Aroostook State Park in Presque Isle, which she used to love.
“We lived in Portland at the time, so there wasn’t much for hiking trails around the city,” she said.
But some of her best memories about the annual trip, she recalled, surrounded the Visitor’s Information Center in Houlton and a playground that she felt was “magical.”
“It was the most amazing wooden playground,” she said. “I had never seen anything like it at the time. Every year, my parents would stop at the visitor’s center and we’d have a picnic on the lawn or at one of the tables. Then, they would let my two sisters and I play on the equipment.”
The sizable wooden structure, she said, looked “so rustic, like someone had constructed it out of the middle of a forest.”
“At least that is how it looked to me as a kid,” she continued. “And I was always amazed that a rest stop had a playground, especially one that nice.”
Surrounded by a wooden fence next to the tourism building, the area below the structure was padded by sawdust shavings. The playground included three swing sets, a tire swing, wobbly bridge, rope ladder, monkey bars and more.
The Visitors Information Center is located on an eight-acre parcel at 28 Ludlow Road , which includes a 2,000-square-foot log building. The center offers maps, brochures and other information about Houlton, Aroostook County and the rest of the state.
Seven years ago, Houlton took ownership of the center after Maine Department of Transportation officials announced they were considering closing it in order to save money. Costs to maintain the center proved to be higher than Houlton officials expected, and they decided to market it.
Information about when the playground was constructed was not immediately available from the department. By the time it was destroyed in 2010, however, it had been there since at least the early to mid-1980s.
Some current and former residents recalled using the playground as a background for some important life moments, including the Houlton High School class of 1987. They gathered there for a group photograph for their yearbook.
“I remember going there for a photograph after I graduated from the old Lambert School and was getting ready to go to high school,” said Jessica Hollis, a former Houlton resident who now lives in Presque Isle. “I remember I thought it was a really stupid idea when my mom suggested it, but now I wish I still had the picture. I remember once after a field trip or something, the teachers actually brought us to the information center so we could eat lunch and then run around and play. It was great!”
The playground was totally disbanded in 2010 after a Missouri man, who was suffering from a mental illness, briefly set fire to the structure. It caused minimal damage, but officials took down what was left of the playground.
