The Oldest House in Maine is Still Standing After More Than 300 Years

The next time you are traveling along Cider Hill Road on Route 91 in York, Maine, keep your eyes open for a home that we built at a time when Maine was the subject of an ownership dispute between England and France.

The McIntire Garrison House was built in 1704, and is amazingly still standing in great condition 319 years later. Part of that is because it was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, becoming a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1968.

According to Wikipedia, the McIntire Garrison House was originally believed to have been built in 1645, but after it was analyzed in the 20th century, experts found that it used building methods that weren't used until the 18th century.

The house is a colonial log garrison house, built by settlers in Maine for defense against Native American attacks. Inside the house, there are wooden floors, paneled walls, and unfinished ceilings. The windows, however, are not original, as the house has been restored twice in the 20th century.

According to AZ Animals, the renovations needed to keep the house in good condition required covering the log structure with clapboard siding, putting on a new roof, and replacing the chimney. Those renovations didn't change the overall structure of the house, which allowed it to be deemed a National Historic Landmark.

I did some digging but was unable to find any information about tours of the house, so it seems that if you want to see it, you'll have to look from outside. If you want to see some photos of the McIntire Garrison House as it looked in 1936, The Library of Congress has some great ones on its website.