Cushing Island
Casco Bay, Maine · 10,000 years
Military · 1917–1919

District Wireless Station Site

1917 Navy radio hut on the north bluff

[HC]High-Confidence Inference43.64400° N, 70.19450° WApproximate
In layers04 · Fortress Cushing

Position — The station is documented by one photograph. Its position here is inferred from the photograph's northward sight-line and remains unlocated in the strict sense.

District-Wireless Station, Cushing Island, Maine, ca. 1914
District-Wireless Station, Cushing Island, Maine, ca. 1914 · ca. 1914 · Collections of Maine Historical Society
Historical significance

During the First World War the U.S. Navy operated a small District Wireless Station on Cushing to relay coastal traffic. A single surviving photograph shows a shingled hut with an antenna platform on the roof, looking north toward Munjoy Hill.

On the ground
  • A cleared, elevated bench with a clean sight-line toward Portland.
  • Guy-wire anchor points and disturbed soil are the most likely surface traces.
  • The building itself was small — foundation, if any, would be modest.
Engineering / Landscape reading

Wireless huts of this period needed elevation, a clear northern arc, and grounded antenna anchors — not a fortified footprint. Look for the geometry of the anchors, not the walls.

Open research questions
  1. 1.Which of the several elevated benches on the north side matches the sight-line in the 1917 photograph?
  2. 2.Was the station wired into Fort Levett's fire-control network, or independent of it?
From the archive
District-Wireless Station, Cushing Island, Maine, ca. 1914
District-Wireless Station, Cushing Island, Maine, ca. 1914
ca. 1914 · Maine Memory Network #102431
Where to walk next
Fort Levett — Battery Foote
120 m · ~1 min
Endicott-era coastal artillery
Levett's Cellar & Spicer's Cove
730 m · ~9 min
Levett's 1623 settlement site

Distances are straight-line from recorded coordinates. Island roads curve, so allow more time than the estimate.

How we know
What else stood here
  • 1898–present — Battery Foote
Continue the trail
Back to the island map (16 places)