The Kennebec Arsenal

12/30/2021

One of our members asked Jan Lasselle Karrick what it was like to live in the Commandant's house at the Kennebec Arsenal. Here's a piece she wrote for us last year. Thanks for sharing your memories with us, Jan.

"Just thought I would send you some information about the house that I grew up in at the Augusta State Hospital. My father, George Lasselle took a position as Business Manager of the Augusta State Hospital in 1958 and we moved into the Commandant’s House (or as we knew it, the Treasures’ House) on the hospital grounds. (See a descirption of the house below)
I so loved living there. I took a certain amount of teasing from classmates, like "doesn't it scare you to hear the patients howl at the full moon?", something I NEVER heard. I was also asked if I was scared living so close to the maximum security of the criminally insane . . . my answer was, "I was not scared, cause if they escaped, they weren't coming to my house, they were going to get as far away from the hospital as they could, maybe to YOUR house." . .LOL
There were several doctors who lived on the grounds around my house. Two of the officers quarters, were converted into condos for 4 families and there lived my best friends, whom I am still friends with today. As children we played with some of the patients that were housed in the Burleigh Building or what was previously known as the Arsenal Building. There was always a ball to kick around with the patients or we would watch them play baseball on one of the fields that use to house the Carpenters Shop and the Machine Shop.
As kids we spent time up on the farm, where Farmer Littlefield would show us the new chicks and baby cows, the Belgian draft horses and in the summer there was a small horse cart that he would take us for rides."
Should be a crime to let all the buildings there deteriorate as badly as they have now! Almost 15 years since Niemann purchased it...and only paid part of it as he also had a deal he didn't have to pay the State the rest until he started Phase 2. HA! He can't even start Phase 1 as promised. Open each photo separately to best view.

12/02/2021

Here in Augusta, Maine we are fighting for our history and will continue to even though the current owner lives in NY

The would-be developer of the historic Kennebec Arsenal property denies nearly every allegation of neglect made in a lawsuit filed by the state, which seeks to reclaim the property.

08/23/2021

WE CANNOT LET OUR HISTORY BE DESTROYED AS IS HAPPENING NOW! SAVE OUR ARSENAL!!!
By Mary Grow of the Town Line newspaper:
The Kennebec Arsenal was built as a result of strained relations between the United States and Britain, which peaked in the War of 1812 (June 1812 – February 1815); and of later border disputes between the State of Maine and the abutting Canadian province of New Brunswick, which peaked in the Aroostook War (1838-1839).
The end of the war did not settle the border between the United States and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. There were arguments over what is now northern Aroostook County and southern Madawaska County, as settlers from both sides moved into the area.
Consequently, in 1827 the federal government developed plans for a major arsenal in Augusta, on a site south of Fort Western accessible by ocean-going ships. The arsenal was built between 1828 and 1838.
Wikipedia says the original, mostly granite buildings, built between 1828 and 1831, were “commandant’s and officer quarters, barracks, stables, a carriage shop, and the main armory.” By 1838, the commandant’s building was enlarged and redesigned in Greek Revival style, and two magazines, a munitions laboratory, an office, a wooden stable and a granite and iron perimeter fence were completed. Other sources list buildings differently, but it is clear there were at least eight early granite buildings.
In 1838, Maine and New Brunswick sent soldiers to their common border. United States General Winfield Scott came to the Kennebec Arsenal to negotiate with his friend John Harvey, then Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick. The two agreed to recall the respective militias and the dispute cooled.
In August 1842 the Webster-Ashburton Treaty established the boundary between the United States and Canada that exists today, including the Maine-New Brunswick line that runs along the Saint John and Saint Francis rivers. (Webster was Daniel Webster from New Hampshire, at that time United States Secretary of State; he is also known for his role in negotiating the Compromise of 1850. Ashburton was Alexander Baring, First Baron Ashburton, a British financier and diplomat.)
After Maine became less significant in international affairs, the arsenal became less vital. Wikipedia says the government made weapons in it during the Mexican War (1846-1848) and the Civil War (1861-1865); but it was too remote to be practical for major production.
The federal government closed the Arsenal, issuing the order in 1901 and finishing the process in 1903, and transferred the property to the State of Maine, owner of the Maine Insane Hospital (later the Augusta Mental Health Institute [AMHI]). The mental hospital was established by legislation in 1834 and the first buildings were completed in 1840, adjoining the Arsenal grounds on the south.
By the early 20th century, the state needed more hospital beds. Beginning in 1905, the wooden buildings on the Arsenal grounds were demolished and the granite buildings were redone and integrated into the hospital.
An on-line site describes the building called the “Old Max,” designed by Lewiston architects Coombs and Gibbs and added at the eastern side of the grounds in 1907-1909. Four stories high, built of granite and brick and designed to harmonize with the earlier Arsenal buildings, it was for maximum security patients, those too dangerous for the hospital and too mentally ill for prison.
Beginning in the early 1970s, Maine and other states moved to a new model of mental health care that minimized confinement in institutions. State officials debated what to do with the formal Arsenal/hospital. The Old Max became a state office building.
The Kennebec Arsenal was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in August 1970 and as a National Historic Landmark in February 2000.
In 2004 Save America’s Treasures, a National Park Service grant program, provided funds that state officials used for work on the granite wall and iron and granite fence around part of the original Arsenal property.
Three years later, the state sold the Arsenal property to a private company. A contemporary description lists eight major buildings on the property, plus the fence and gate, retaining walls and a wharf. Wikipedia says there are six buildings.
Conditions of the 2007 sale included a requirement that the new owner preserve and maintain the property. However, the owner let the Arsenal deteriorate to the point where in 2013 Maine sued to force the company to return the property. The owner did some work and promised more, Wikipedia says; but by 2013, the Arsenal was listed as a critically endangered historic landmark.
Contemporary photos of the Arsenal show clearly the light-colored interlocking granite blocks. An on-line site describes it as “one of the best and earliest surviving examples” of a 19th-century federal munitions depot.
Other descriptions feature deterioration, vandalism and graffiti.
*****Judging from a recent letter to the editor in the Central Maine newspapers, there has been no improvement. In December 2020, a Manchester resident referred to proposals to renovate the Arsenal for commercial or residential space and mourned the failure of city, county and state governments to act.*****

08/22/2021

REVIVING THE ARSENAL...
City looks for ways to push owner of landmark on Kennebec River to preserve, redevelop property
Andy Molloy/Kennebec Journal photos
The former Kennebec Arsenal in Augusta sits idle 14 years after a developer purchased the property with promises to breathe new life into it. Now, councilors and neighbors are fed up with the owner’s inaction and want to see some development take place.
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BY KEITH EDWARDS
Kennebec Journal
AUGUSTA
AUGUSTA — After 14 years of deterioration, the historic Kennebec Arsenal property must be spruced up and given new life by the developer who has done nothing substantial with it, city officials said.
Addressing any violations at the property that could pose a harm to the public is the highest priority, city councilors said at their meeting Thursday night. They also plan to direct the city’s attorney to look into any violations of the city’s property maintenance ordinance, historic preservation rules, a public use agreement for portions of the property and any other potential violations of city ordinances.
North Carolina developer Tom Niemann, who made a down payment of $280,000 for the property to the state some 14 years ago and claimed he would redevelop it with new uses such as retail and residential space, has not redeveloped any of the property or its eight primarily granite-block buildings.
“I think what we need to do is make the ownership of this building to him as uncomfortable as we absolutely positively can, so he’s ready to move on,” Ward 2 City Councilor Kevin Judkins said Thursday, after a group of citizens asked city officials to do something to prevent the Arsenal’s further deterioration.
“Because so far it has been a very comfortable cushion. And I think we need to turn it into a pin cushion.”

Robert Overton, director of code enforcement, said he walked the property earlier this week and it is clearly in violation of the city’s property maintenance ordinance. He said 13 or 14 violations were repeated in most of the complex’s buildings.
“Certainly we saw a number of items that could cause an injury to somebody,” Overton said, when asked by city councilors about safety problems at the site. “Deteriorating wooden structures, porches that are unsound. The property is riddled with sinkholes, some a foot deep, six inches wide, some of them 5 feet wide, 4 feet deep with an exposed underground electrical cable running through it.”
The National Historic Landmark collection of granite buildings, built by the federal government between 1828 and 1838, is considered by some preservationists to be among the best and earliest surviving examples of 19th century munitions depots in the country.
Reached by phone Friday, Niemann insisted his company is maintaining and has invested in the property, including paying for security workers to monitor the site. He said he is working on an application to the city, to renovate the complex’s Commandant’s Quarters into the home of Renewal Family Center, which would offer treatment to families suffering from addiction and mental health issues.
“We’re moving forward with the Commandant’s Quarters,” Niemann said.

He declined to address the ongoing concerns of area residents that he hasn’t maintained or preserved the property. “We’re going to continue to stay the course on what our development plans are. We’ve got an engineering firm helping us with the plans, we’re trying to get going on the first building.”
Overton said the only permit application he is aware of the city receiving was for a sign for the site, which he said wasn’t granted because it needs to be reviewed by the Planning Board.
Longtime Augusta resident Connie Hanson said she and other citizens formed Concerned Citizens for Augusta Historical Preservation of the Kennebec Arsenal “after 14 years of deterioration, of worsening deterioration,” of the Arsenal since the state sold it to Niemann. “We pursue this to see that our beloved Arsenal is preserved and redeveloped into a community asset,” she said.
She said she had learned two developers tried to purchase the property from Niemann, for $1 million, in recent years but said he declined those offers.
Hanson said it has been frustrating to see the successful redevelopment of the former Stevens School property in Hallowell into housing and other new uses, while the Arsenal continues to languish. She said a redeveloped Arsenal property could make Augusta a true destination for visitors.

Kim Davis was a city councilor and state legislator when she said Niemann approached the city and state with plans to redevelop the then-vacant Arsenal. Her property abuts the Arsenal’s Commandant’s Quarters property, and she said the neighborhood deserves a vibrant, compatible use at the Arsenal site. Davis said Niemann has previously indicated the Commandant’s Quarters would be his offices and maybe his home, and expressed concern a drug rehabilitation center there would not be compatible with the neighborhood.
Nor does she want to see the property remain undeveloped.
“We met with him; we rallied with him. He made us promises we hoped would come to fruition,” Davis said. “No one, more than myself, would love to see that property be a viable asset to the community, as Mr.
Niemann has promised.”
In 2018 Niemann and a business partner, Dennis Parnell, proposed to locate a facility to offer substance abuse and other treatment to veterans in a building they proposed to build adjacent to the Arsenal property.
That project, which Parnell acknowledged under questioning from councilors at the time had no funding, was greeted with skepticism from state and local officials.

Niemann was sued for his handling of the Arsenal by the state in 2013, in a lawsuit which claimed he hadn’t adequately preserved or maintained the buildings, which was later dropped after both sides reached an agreement in which Niemann committed to better maintaining the site. And in 2017 the Greater Augusta Utility District initiated foreclosure proceedings because Niemann hadn’t paid $60,000 in stormwater fees, but those proceedings were halted when that bill was settled.
Keith Edwards — 207-621-5647
THROUGH THE YEARS KENNEBEC ARSENAL
1828-38: Built as a munitions building along with seven other granite buildings
1903: Closed by federal government
1905: Augusta Mental Health Institute
1970: Added to the National Register of Historic Places
2000: Designated a National Historic Landmark
2004: Received Save America’s Treasures grant for repairs
2007: Bought by Niemann Capital, LLC for $280,000
Source: Maine Preservation Staff graphic by Sharon Wood

08/22/2021

Save the Kennebec Arsenal! The site plan clearly shows our rights to public access. We need the Kennebec Arsenal preserved and protected for future generations. Let the voices be heard! Just to clarify this site plan, as you enter through the gates, there's a driveway to the right down to the first building. You are allowed to go past that No Trespass sign and you will come across a path that leads down to the Kennebec. People have been complaining that they've been thrown off the property using that path.

08/22/2021

LET'S SAVE OUR HISTORY! LET'S SAVE THE KENNEBEC ARSENAL!!!!
This 1894 view of the arsenal shows it at its fullest extent. In the foreground is the riverside wharf with ramps for the loading of heavy cannon. From left to right the granite buildings are: Officers Quarters #2, the Arsenal itself with Officers Quarters #1 for the Commandant barely visible on the hillside above it, Enlisted Men's Barracks, Officers Quarters #3 for NCO's, the Carpenter's Shop in back, and two wooden general storage buildings in front.
The three laboratories, two magazines, blacksmith shop, carriage makers shop and armory shop are out of view on the top of the hillside and the guard house is not visible to the left of Officer's Quarters #2.