Fort Knox
Each month, Down East editors select our favorite response to “Where in Maine?” Here is our favorite letter from April’s photo.
During World War II, my father, who had a scrap-iron business in Auburn, won the contract to remove the cannons from Fort Knox and ship the iron to factories to turn it into material for the war. Most of the cannons were big and heavy or in awkward places, so they had to be broken up to get them out of the fort. Since they were made of iron, we used dynamite to break them up so they could be loaded into trucks and taken to the railcars. On many occasions, the dynamite charge was too big, and we received many complaints from the town of broken windows and other damages from the shock waves. A few years ago, on one of our annual visits back to Maine, we took our two children to show them the fort. The government had specified which cannons were to remain so that history of the fort would not be totally gone. — Joseph Miller, Rockville, Maryland