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Milo is a town in Piscataquis County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,251 at the 2020 census. Milo includes the village of Derby. The town sits in the valley of the Piscataquis, Sebec and Pleasant Rivers in the foothills of the Longfellow Mountains and is the gateway to many pristine hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, and other outdoor tourist locations such as Schoodic, Seboeis, and Sebec Lakes, Mount Katahdin and its backcountry in Baxter State Park and the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, Katahdin Iron Works and Gulf Hagas.

History

The community was first known as Township Number 3 in the seventh range north of the Waldo Patent. It was settled by Benjamin Sargent and his son, Theophilus, from Methuen, Massachusetts, on May 2, 1802. On January 21, 1823, it was incorporated as Milo, named after Milo of Croton, a famous athlete from ancient Croton in Magna Graecia, Italy. It would become a trade center, with Trafton's Falls providing water power for early industry. In 1823, Winborn A. Swett built a dam at the river drop and erected the first sawmill. Thomas White soon added a carding and fulling mill. The Joseph Cushing & Company built a woolen textile mill in 1842, but it burned six years later.

The Bangor and Piscataquis Railroad arrived in 1868–1869, and Milo developed into a small mill town. It produced numerous lumber goods, and in 1879 the Boston Excelsior Company built a factory to manufacture excelsior. The American Thread Company built a factory with a narrow gauge industrial railway in 1901–1902, moving its equipment from Willimantic, Connecticut.

Derby village

The early Bangor & Piscataquis and Bangor & Katahdin Iron Works railroads met at Milo Junction. After these railroads merged into the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, Milo Junction became the company town of Derby with the second largest railroad car shop and repair facility in New England. In 1906 the railroad invested $414,448.95 in brick buildings including a two-story office, a planing mill, and an enginehouse with a locomotive shop and a 54,000-square-foot car shop connected by a transfer table moving back and forth above a repair pit. Employee housing initially included a 45-room hotel with a dining room for single railroad shopmen and 46 homes with bathrooms, hot water boilers, ranges, and electric lights for married men. The village expanded to include stores and 72 identical employee houses arranged in four rows along First and Second Streets. These uniformly-colored structures were sold by the railroad in 1959 and the hotel became a community center.

Ku Klux Klan

On Labor Day 1923, Milo became the site of the Ku Klux Klan's first daylight parade in the northern United States. Seventy-five members of the Klan marched during the town's centennial celebration.

2008 fire

On September 14, 2008, a fire destroyed several buildings in downtown Milo, including a flower shop, an arcade, and a True Value hardware store. Because of the age, composition, and vicinity of these buildings, the fire easily spread and devastated much of Main Street. Fire departments from Milo and from several surrounding towns were called in to extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported. Arson was determined to be the cause.

In January 2009, Christopher M. Miliano was arrested and indicted on two counts of arson, one count of theft, one count of burglary, and one count of aggravated assault prosecutors claimed that Miliano set fire to a pub he had burglarized, resulting in the blaze. In July 2009, Miliano entered a guilty plea for his offense, and was sentenced by the Piscatiquis County Superior Court to twenty years in prison, with all but eight years suspended.

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