Old Spring House Buried For 60 Years Found at Desert of Maine

If you've ever visited the Desert of Maine in Freeport, you may have seen a sign on a dune marking the location of an old spring house buried beneath the sand. New owners of the famous Maine landmark set out to located exactly where beneath the sand it was, and they found it a lot deeper than they expected to.

The Desert of Maine is 40 acres of sand that was deposited by glaciers millions of years ago. It's not a true desert, but it definitely sticks out among the trees off Route 1 in Freeport.

A spring house was built in the desert in the 1930s. These structures were typically built over springs to keep things cool before refrigerators became commonplace. The cool water from the spring would keep the typically one room spring house cool, making it perfect to store perishable in. The Desert of Maine's spring house was a little different. When originally built, you could get a cup of fresh spring water for just 5 cents at the spring house.

According to the Desert of Maine Facebook page, the desert was closed during World War II and during that time the spring house started to become buried by the moving sand. The owners didn't want to go through the trouble of trying to move all that sand, so they let time run its course and by 1962 it was completely buried.

The new owners wanted to try to find where it was almost 60 years later and were surprised when they found it with radar, 15 feet down in the sand, showing just how much the sands shift over the years.

Now they've begun the process of excavating the spring house hoping that it has remained in good shape all these years so that it can once again serve as one of the attractions at the famed Desert of Maine.