Fireproof Town Office & Jail

George Hartwell Donham was deeply involved in Island Falls affairs. He held the office of town clerk for 35 consecutive years, was elected postmaster, and served as a trial justice and deputy sheriff. In fact, Donham’s name appears in the town’s own printed record: he is credited as the printer of the Town of Island Falls’ annual report for the year ending March 25, 1901, a document housed today in the Maine Town Documents collection at the University of Maine’s digital archive.

Building a Fireproof Town Office

George Donham’s most lasting legacy is the sandstone-faced Former Town Office and Jail at 47 Burleigh Street, still standing in the center of Island Falls today. The building’s origin traces to a fire on February 10, 1910, that destroyed the Grant Building and neighboring structures in the village, including the room where the town office and post office were then housed. Postal and town records stored in a safe on the site were largely lost. For a year afterward, the town office operated out of rented space in another village building.

According to the Island Falls Historical Society, it was Donham, who was serving as town clerk at the time, who pushed for a replacement building that “would not burn.” The town issued $2,000 in bonds in 1911 to fund construction, and local contractor Mark A. Peters was awarded the building contract. The result was a small, decorative concrete-block building with poured-concrete walls, a fireproof vault for town records, and two iron-barred jail cells in the basement that were used to hold prisoners before they were transferred to the county jail in Houlton. Donham’s role as town constable connects him directly to the building’s use as a lock-up.

The building went on to serve several purposes over the decades. It housed the town’s early volunteer fire department equipment into the 1930s, was home to the Katahdin Public Library from 1939 until 1968, and continued as the town office until 1978. The Island Falls Historical Society acquired the building in 1990 and used it as its primary base of operations until relocating to the Tingley House in 2000. It is believed to be one of only two entirely iron-celled jails still existing in the state of Maine.

National Register Listing

The Former Town Office and Jail was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 2019, becoming the third historic building in Island Falls to receive that designation, joining the Island Falls Opera House (1984) and the William Sewall House (1982). The official National Register nomination form does not name Donham directly — it credits Mark A. Peters as builder and notes that no original plans or records of the design process survive — but local historical society tradition, as reported in regional news coverage, consistently credits Donham with commissioning the project in his role as town clerk.

Sources

“Annual Reports of the Selectmen, Assessors, Overseers of Poor, Treasurer, and Superintendent of Schools of the Town of Island Falls, Me. For the Year Ending March 25, 1901” (George H. Donham, printer), Maine Town Documents, University of Maine: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/towndocs/8143/

“Former town office, jail placed on National Register of Historic Places,” The County, May 10, 2019: https://thecounty.me/2019/05/10/news/former-town-office-jail-placed-on-national-register-of-historic-places/

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, “Former Town Office and Jail,” Aroostook County, Maine (NRIS #100003587), Maine Historic Preservation Commission, submitted November 5, 2018: https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/8b92291d-d576-46f2-ad50-f3b5c0eab5a9