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V O L . X X V I N O. X V I 200 200 IDEAS FOR MAINE'S BICENTENNIAL 62 Fact Book / Doing Business in Maine The first ship built by the English in the New World was at the Popham Colony, in Phippsburg, in 1607. The Virginia Company, which settled on the peninsula, built the ship to leave, and they were gone by 1609. But the tradition remains — Bath Iron Works is just up the road. Samuel Champlain discovered Frenchman Bay and named Mount Desert Island in 1604, well before the English founded Plimouth Colony in 1620. Augusta was once considered one of the country's hottest publishing centers in the 1800s, including Vickery & Hill and more, at one time more than a dozen national magazines were published in Augusta. Gannett Co. also published the Kennebec Journal, which began in 1825 and hasn't stopped since. The earmuff was invented in 1873 by Chester Greenwood, a 15-year- old from Farmington. It was later put into widespread production. 1 Maine's official soft drink, Moxie, is actually produced in New Hampshire. But it was invented in 1876 by Union-born Augustin Thompson, who developed it as Moxie Nerve Food. 2 Flexible Flyer sleds were manufactured in Paris, Maine, by Paris Manufacturing, patented by owner Samuel Leeds Allen in 1889, in part to give the staff at his farm equipment manufacturing business something to make in the off-season. It was the longest operating and largest sled company in the world for nearly a century. 3 Leon Leonwood Bean's original Maine Hunting Boot, in 1912, offered a money- back guarantee. He guaranteed the boot "in every way" and found out in nearly every way how painful that could be, having to offer refunds on 90 of the first 100 boots sold. But more than 100 years later, the company worked out the original issues and sells upwards of 1 million pairs a year. Lobstering has always been backbreaking work, but before the advent of power boats, lobstermen rowed their way between lobster traps and hauled them aboard without the help of power winches. By the 1920s, lobstermen started adapting car engines to their boats, expanding their range, improving their catch and adding to their yearly coffers. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, founded in Unity in 1971, is the oldest and largest state organic organization in the country. 4 Ocean Renewable Power Co. of Portland, founded in 2004, uses tidal power and river water flow to create renewable, carbon-free electricity Schoodic Institute at Acadia National Park was created in 2004 at a former Navy base on Schoodic Point in Winter Harbor. The nonprofit partner to Acadia National Park is one of 18 National Park Service research learning centers, thanks to multimillion- dollar investments of federal and philanthropic funding. GO Lab, a Belfast company, said in 2019 it plans to develop a plant to manufacture highly efficient fiberboard insulation at the former Madison paper mill. In 2019 WEX Inc., Maine's third-largest public company by annual revenues, moved its headquarters from South Portland to the East End of Portland. Covetrus, Maine's largest public company, soon broke ground on its headquarters, just a block from WEX, and Sun Life announced plans to move several hundred employees to new office space nearby. 5 Maine's state gem, tourmaline, was the first gemstone mined in the U.S. The mine was at Mount Mica, in Paris, in Oxford County. The first satellite television signal was sent, in 1962, from Andover, Maine (hence Telstar High School). Comfort Magazine, published in Augusta by the Gannett Co., was the first publication to reach 1 million circulation. Gannett bought one of the first color web presses used in the United States, and his innovative use of mail subscriptions spurred the USPS to change the way it classified mail. P H O T O / J O E S H L A BO T N I K , F L I C K R P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O C E A N R E N E WA B L E P OW E R C O. P H O T O / C O U R T E S Y O F L . L . B E A N 2 P H O T O / P U B L I C D O M A I N PHOTO / THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF INDIANAPOLIS, WIKIPEDIA 1 3 5 4

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