Photo 41-FAN-19

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Poland Spring House.....burned in the 90s

It actually burned on July 3, 1975. During the time of this photo, the Woman's Job Corps would have been occupying the buildings.

This photo is taken from the north, looking south. A pro golf shop and clubhouse are located on what would have been a small, corner portion of the grand hotel. In this photo, to the right of the former PSH (built in 1876), is The Maine Inn (built in 1963 to provide guests with modern conveniences, such as private baths, which the PSH did not offer.)

The Pro Shop & Clubhouse was built after the fire. They moved the pro shop from the lodge a year or two earlier. It had been moved it to the basement of the Poland Spring House, then re opened at the lodge after the fire. There were locker rooms and a snack bar. I maintained the locker rooms and golf carts, and did general clean up of the area and maintained the swimming pool that was put in to the left of the structure. Many of the electric golf carts were parked in an area of the basement behind the pro shop. We kept the gasoline powered carts in the old boiler building behind the Poland Spring House. The cause of the fire that destroyed this building was never determined. I’m pretty confident it began in the snack bar, where a deep fryer with a broken temperature control was in use. The unit was plugged in at opening time, then unplugged and plugged back in during the day to control the temperature. At closing, it was to be unplugged. I believe someone may have forgotten to unplug it and it overheated starting a grease fire that night. The other possibility is an overheating or malfunctioning battery charger. When I parked the carts at night, there were chargers for the batteries I connected each one to. I often wonder if the electrical system couldn’t handle the current draw of all those chargers. I still have the coins all melted together I retrieved from the cash register after the fire.

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