Orient–Fosterville Border Crossing
Canadian facilities
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The Canadian government built a border station here in about 1930. The current station was built in 1986.
The Canadian station handles about 30 cars every day.
United States facilities
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/Orient_Maine_Border_Station_-_panoramio.jpg/220px-Orient_Maine_Border_Station_-_panoramio.jpg)
The United States facility is located on the north side of Boundary Road. The main building is a 1+1⁄2-story brick-faced Colonial Revival structure, with a side-gable roof and a projecting one-lane hip-roofed porte-cochere. The porte-cochere is supported by Classical Revival squared columns, with matching pilasters at the building front. Stylistically similar wood-frame single-story wings extend the building to either side; that on the left houses restrooms, that on the right offices. The interior of the main building is symmetrically organized, with customs on one side and immigration on the other. A small garage, dating to the same period as the main building, stands to the northwest.
Prior to the construction of this station, customs and immigration formalities would have taken place in the nearest town. With the advent of increased automobile traffic in the 1920s, as well as the need to interdict the movement of contraband liquor due to Prohibition, the federal government realized the need for border stations where immigration formalities and vehicle inspections could be performed close to the border, and consequently planned the construction of a series of such stations. This building, built in 1937, is the least-altered of Maine's surviving early border stations. It was built to a standard "Type 1" plan, one of three built on the Canada–US border, and is the only one of those still in use in Maine. Others of this style are still in operation in other states, including Morses Line, Vermont, and Alburg Springs, Vermont.
See also
- List of Canada–United States border crossings
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Aroostook County, Maine
References
- ^ "ChipLakeNEWS InfoSheet". April 21, 2003. Retrieved August 22, 2014.
- ^ "Orient and Fosterville Ports | ezbordercrossing". www.ezbordercrossing.com. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
- ^ Paul, Daniel; Starzak, Richard (2011). NRHP nomination for US Border Station - Limestone, Maine; available by request from the Maine SHPO