Milo Historical Society

We were recently contacted by the University of Southern Maine’s Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education in regards to their search for a copy of the 1896 Bird’s Eye View map of Milo to add to their data base collection. The Society’s original copy was not the best but Milo resident Bill Joyce generously donated a much better original copy to us and the people from the USM borrowed the map to scan and upload to their site. They also will be providing us with an enlarged copy for display in the museum. So in addition to our current featured display of aerial views of Milo, you will soon have the opportunity to view the enlargement of the 1896 Bird’s Eye View map. In the meantime, please visit the attached link to the Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education Map gallery, which not only includes the Milo map but others from across the state of Maine. Thank you!

https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/oml-maine-birds-eye-view-maps/88/

You may notice that we recently took away the online search section from our website.  While this was intended to be a useful component of our site and was visited by many, we made the decision to drop it for a few important reasons.  One of the major reasons was that the online search platform we were using was not very “user friendly”.  We received feedback from a number of people over the past few years that it was frustrating to maneuver and difficult to retrieve information easily.  Frankly we felt the same way but we had little control over the way it worked.  The second reason was the fact that the historical society was paying a substantial annual fee to have a company host the online search platform.  If the site was working well and was useful it would have been one thing, but it was not worth paying for something that was not functioning the way we intended.

The good news is that we are currently working on a project which we hope will result in an attractive and useful search component to our website. We ask for your patience due to the fact that it is a work in progress and will require time and effort on behalf of our volunteers.  It may be awhile before it is up and running.  In the meantime, we hope you will enjoy looking through the great information, stories, and pictures posted on our website and on our Facebook page.  We will make an effort to get more articles and pictures posted on both and would love to have you share your stories and photos with us. We also would like to remind you that even though we have adjusted and shortened our hours at the museum due to Covid 19, we are in fact still open to the public (following safety guidelines) on Tuesdays from 10 am to noon and by appointment.  We hope you understand the changes to our website and thank you for your support in preserving the heritage of the Town of Milo.