City Of Belfast Maine

Belfast newest block on the 'Main Street'

Maine Development Foundation, which administers the program at the state level, was accepting one or two communities each year and had begun requiring applicants to go through a feeder program as a preliminary step. If Belfast did get in, the news would seem to have occasioned a major celebration.

Neither was the case. As it turned out, becoming a Main Street community didn't take Belfast long at all — the city was formally accepted on June 10 — and with an unprecedented surge of new businesses opening in the downtown commercial district, Our Town Belfast has been too busy to celebrate.

More than 25 new businesses have come to town in the past year, and nearly the same number have either relocated within the city's commercial center or expanded. Storefronts have been filling up so quickly that Our Town arranged to have a group ribbon-cutting event to celebrate all of them at once.

Even the celebration, held on a Tuesday morning, was businesslike in its brevity. The city closed Upper Main Street at 8 a.m. Shop owners crowded into Bay Wrap for coffee and pastries. Several TV crews conducted interviews on the street for stories on the seemingly magical business boom in Belfast. By 9 a.m. everyone was back to work.

Main Street is a nationwide program, including more than 1,200 communities, and is overseen by the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street Center. At the core of the program is the idea that a healthy downtown, often characterized as the "heart" of the community, is the key to the sustained economic health of an area.

Statewide, there are nine Main Street communities, and another 17 in the Maine Downtown Network, a program that was created as a testing ground for aspiring Main Streeters. Belfast was the only community to be bumped up to full-fledged Main Street status this year.

According to Roxanne Eflin of Maine Development Foundation, the decision was partly a financial one but was also based on an evaluation of the communities in the Downtown Network.

"A lot of communities are very interested, but we're working with communities that are ready," she said.

Among the qualities that worked in Belfast's favor, Eflin said, was the downtown's relatively intact nineteenth-century architecture, Belfast's place as a service center, the city's "great sense of self," and the presence of a strong arts community, among other things.

New! Emergency Medicine opportunity coastal Belfast Maine |

New Emergency Medicine opportunity in beautiful coastal Belfast. Waldo County General Hospital  a critical access hospital with 16, 000 visits annually to the Emergency Department  is seeking a physician to join their team. The schedule is 12-hour shifts, 10-hr double coverage daily with advanced practitioner. Nights are worked in rotation. Excellent salary, full benefits, paid time off, paid CME.  A good fit for this opportunity is a physician  who is boarded or current resident in Emergency Medicine, Boarded in  Family Medicine, Internal Medicine or ​Surgery with ED experience. Contact: Jane Ham, jham@themha.org , 800-546-4090 for more information, or register with us.

Waldo County General Hospital is a 140-year old, 25-bed critical access community hospital (CAH) located in the city of Belfast, Maine . This hospital is the sole-community provider of health care for Waldo County. It serves Belfast, with a population of 7,000, and numerous rural communities within a 20-mile or so radius, bringing the hospital’s total service population to about 37,000 Mainers. Many surgical and other sub specialists have joined the medical staff in recent years, and the hospital recently completed a substantial expansion project.

This hospital has a full service, 24-hour Emergency Room; a Pulmonary and Sleep Lab; Cardiac Rehabilitation facilities; a Renal Dialysis unit; Maine’s foremost Voice and Swallowing Center for diagnostic testing and speech therapy; and a full array of surgical and specialty services. In the summer of 2005, a new capital campaign was launched to fund the replacement of three OR suites and two procedure rooms.

Community

The city of Belfast and neighboring Searsport are two of the most beautiful and historically interesting coastal communities in Waldo County . Belfast is about 45 minutes east of Maine’s capital of Augusta, and 50 or so minutes south of Bangor.

Whether you are a young family wanting to raise your children in a safe, friendly community; a business owner looking for reliable, hardworking employees; or an artist seeking a creative environment in which to work, the Belfast area can meet your needs.

History of the city of Belfast in the state of Maine, from its first settlement in 1770 to 1875

Vital records of Belfast Maine, to the year 1892 ...

History of The City Of Belfast, Maine, From Its First Settlement In 1770 To 1875

The history of the city of Belfast, Maine

Genealogical and family history of the state of Maine