DANFORTH – The 13-mile stretch of U.S. Route 1 south of town sure ain’t an easy ride.

Cracks, crevices and 6-inch-deep potholes pepper the roadway, forcing drivers to thump and bump along until their teeth rattle in their heads like Mexican maracas.

And then there’s the mystery “stump.”

Armed with an excavator with a 3-foot bucket, Maine Department of Transportation workers unearthed the stump Tuesday morning, ending nearly 75 years of speculation in the span of about 10 minutes.

The 21/2-foot-long chunk of wood turned out to be the bottom of a utility pole.

Former state Rep. Barry Gillis, who has been lobbying to get the road fixed and the stump removed since 1999, watched the piece of wood get pulled out of the asphalt.

“I guess I’m elated,” Gillis said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Nobody knows how or when the stump got there.

Ten inches across and flush with the road, the stump wasn’t nearly as distinctive as imagined, but just to make sure no one would miss it, a circle and the word “stump” had been painted around the dark spot on the road.

In recent years, the locally famous stump has been a rallying point for residents seeking repairs to the only highway between Aroostook and Washington counties. The corridor lies along the northernmost section of the mostly coastal route that stretches from Fort Kent to the Florida Keys.

Gillis shot a videotape of the road and the stump in the spring of 1999 while driving in his truck and later showed it to both the House and the Senate. Word about the miserable road got around to then-Gov. Angus King and then-DOT Commissioner John Melrose, who had a hand in moving up the road’s repair on the DOT’s priority list.

The stretch of road previously had taken a back seat to improvements on Interstate 95 and Route 9 because it has less traffic, according to Bruce Mattson, head of the DOT’s Ellsworth office.

Around 1,000 vehicles travel over that section every day, while busier roads may have 10 times as much, he said.

Gillis, who is a Danforth selectman, said the road’s poor condition has hurt business in the town of roughly 630 people.

“We’ve had a lot of tourists come through here with $90,000 [recreational vehicles] and say they’ll never come back,” Gillis said Tuesday. “So it’s definitely had a definite economic impact here.”

The stump’s departure from the southbound lane of Route 1 is a step forward for the area, Mattson said.

“The stump represents improvement in the roadway and in Down East,” the DOT official said. “It’s really a pleasure to see this stump being removed because it’s really an investment in the future.”

With a price tag of about $7.3 million, work is focusing on rebuilding a 20.5-mile section of the road from Topsfield to Danforth. The 9-mile stretch from Topsfield to Brookton was completed last summer, and the remainder is on tap for this summer and should be completed by October.

Elbridge Cleaves, owner of the First Settler’s Lodge outdoor recreation company located eight miles up the road in Weston, counts on the roadway to bring tourism up from the coast. Improvements to Route 1 are a necessity as the area shifts away from traditional manufacturing products, he said.

“We obviously need to diversify the economy, and we need the infrastructure to do it,” Cleaves said Tuesday, watching the DOT workers and their excavation.

Safety also has been an issue for the area, as emergency services crews rely heavily on the roadway, Gillis said.

Danforth’s fire department serves a 250-square-mile area that includes Brookton, Weston, Orient and Forest City. The section of Route 1 being repaired is posted at 50 mph, but with its deep potholes, the road’s safer speed is 35 mph, Gillis estimated.

“Response time with something like this was ridiculous,” he said about the beat-up road.

For all the different aspects of life the road affects, Gillis was relieved Tuesday to see progress being made in improving it.

During the summer, Lane Construction crews will grind up the old pavement, cut new drainage ditches, regrade parts of the roadway and lay down a newly paved surface, according to Dawn Coffin, DOT project manager for Hancock and Washington counties.

The old “stump” will be cut up and mounted on plaques to be distributed to Gillis, the town and the DOT.

“The stump’s been laughing at the DOT and all the people passing by for years,” Mattson said. “We get the last laugh.”