A booming community, but with limited choices

LINCOLN – The town’s economy might be booming, but Cathy Mushero hasn’t felt it yet. Her husband, truck driver Travis Mushero, has to drive north about 40 miles to Millinocket for work, she says.

“It would be nice if he could get a job around here for the money that he makes, but there aren’t any,” Mushero said as she pumped gasoline into her family vehicle at Why Not Stop? on West Broadway. “We spend about $70 to $75 a week on gasoline. It really sets us back.”

Jan Wotton also goes north, commuting to East Millinocket for nursing classes. The 35-year-old town resident and mother of three switched from taking classes in Bangor to save travel money, adding as much as two years to her studies with that decision, she said.

The daily travel of the Wottons and Musheros illustrates a harsh reality of rural, sparsely populated America particularly true of northern Maine: A trip to a mall, community college, doctor or a movie theater that takes minutes in a city can take hours and guzzle costly fuel in rural towns such as Lincoln.

And while Lincoln’s economy is growing, many things taken for granted in more metropolitan areas – malls, retail clothing stores, bookstores, coffee shops, sporting goods outfits – cannot be found in the land of 14 lakes.

“Shopping is still very limited in Lincoln,” said Patty Cloukey, owner of Capello’s Hair Studio and Day Spa on West Broadway, which opened last year.

Most Lincoln retailers, including Wal-Mart, Mardens, and Rite-Aid, a florist, several automotive parts and hardware stores, many hair stylists, a jewelry store and two gift shops, will order special items upon request. Some offer a wide array of goods, but that doesn’t guarantee satisfaction, as Wotton found when she needed book covers for one of her children. She was forced to drive to Bangor.

“I went everywhere in town,” she said. “Couldn’t find any.”

Except for several video rental stores, Lincoln’s entertainment is lacking. It has no movie theaters, batting cages or bowling alleys, though there was an alley and a theater years ago. Lincoln has a pool hall, Shooters, that added 1,600 square feet for a dance floor and restaurant when owner Corey Hanson saw potential success, but he doubts he will expand again.

“It would be too much work,” he said, “for the return I’d get.”

Lincoln has 25-bed Penobscot Valley Hospital, several dentists and a medical center that covers most specialties, but those doctors might not be enrolled in common medical plans. The Wottons occasionally go to Bar Harbor or Portland to meet the requirements of their HMO, Jan Wotton said.

Mushero took her mother to a hospital in Bangor because it had better heart-treatment facilities than PVH, she said.

Drawing needed social services to rural areas can be challenging, as town veterans discovered during their 51/2-year battle to get a Veterans Administration clinic into Lincoln. Construction of the new clinic, on River Road, is ongoing. Until it’s built, local veterans travel to Presque Isle, Bangor, or farther for services.

The Wottons fear that the new money flooding Lincoln is raising real estate prices and displacing longtime residents. They would move, she said, but they like the school system, SAD 67, and the security of living in a small town.

“I would rather be in a place that has more to offer without all the driving,” Jan Wotton said. “I’d rather have the option to go to a store that has more to offer than Wal-Mart.”

Mushero finds herself wishing that the simplest things will land in Lincoln before this latest wave of economic prosperity recedes.

“I’d love to have more places to eat around here,” Mushero said. “Bangor has a hundred places to eat, and Lincoln only has a few choices.”