DOVER-FOXCROFT – The Villages of Piscataquis County Committee recently received a $5,000 infrastructure grant from the Maine Humanities Council for its Villages Tour.

The Villages Tour, an audio-driving tour of Piscataquis County, highlights the history and culture that make the area unique in Maine and the world. The tour route winds through 15 villages, covers about 134 miles and takes four hours if driven in one session. A colorful logo directs the traveler to the sites along the route, which are complemented with interpretive signs. Signs are already in place at Low’s Bridge on Route 15 in Guilford, Shirley Center, Sebec Village and Brownville. Ultimately, 25 to 30 sites will have signs.

The mission of The Villages Tour is to generate a positive effect on the Piscataquis County economy by highlighting its unique cultural history and enhancing understanding and appreciation of the county, while educating, entertaining and creating a sense of community and cultural pride, according to its organizers.

“We’re all very happy to have received this generous grant from the Maine Humanities Council,” Gayle Watson, project chairman, said recently. “We’ll be using these funds to help produce the audio portion of the tour as well as to build a Web site for marketing and sales of the Villages Tour materials.”

The Villages Tour began as a project of the Penquis Leadership Institute Class of 2005-2006. Some of the graduates of the class formed the Villages Committee to follow the project through to completion. Villages is now under the umbrella of the Piscataquis Tourism Task Force, a committee of the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council.

The interpretive signs will be linked together with a series of CDs, which will contain stories, voices and original music from Piscataquis County as well as guidance to chosen sites, according to Watson. A Web site will be an integral part of the project in the future, where potential tourists could visit and burn portions of, or the entire tour, on CD, or download it to an iPod or an MP3 player. Snippets of tour sites, stories, and music will enhance the Web site and entice the visitor to learn more, she said. Printed maps and tour guides will complete the package. The CDs, maps and tour guides will be made available through local businesses and tourism venues as well as on the Web.

“This grant award is clear evidence that The Villages Tour is an extremely worthwhile, high-quality, unique tourism product,” Thomas Kittredge, executive director of the county development council, said recently. “Perhaps its biggest selling point is that it is entirely locally created and manufactured, allowing Piscataquis County residents to decide which stories should be told through the signs’ text, as well as keeping more dollars circulating in the local economy.”