Athens is a small Somerset County town with a brick academy and a handful of country roads. This map prints Hartland Road, Harmony Road, South Harmony Road, Brighton Road, South Main Street and Hall Farm Road, with Corsons Corner and West Athens. Click here to purchase a print of this map for your wall.
Athens is in Somerset County, and it had 952 people at the 2020 census.
KNOWOL made this map in 2026 from public survey data and gave it the look of an old atlas. The shaded terrain comes from United States Geological Survey elevation data, and the roads and the town line come from the Census Bureau, which counts 43.61 square miles here. State Route 151 comes up from Hartland, and near the center of Athens it meets Route 150 at a wye before heading north through rolling hills and woods to Brighton, eight miles on.
A small town that runs itself
Athens was incorporated in 1804, and it grew twice at its northern neighbor’s expense: the town of Brighton ceded land to Athens in 1838 and again in 1862. It’s governed by a chief executive officer and three selectmen. There’s no police department, the fire department is volunteer, and water and sewer are private. In May 2013 the town voted to leave School Administrative District 59, and in 2014 District 94 voted to take Athens in.
The academy on Academy Street
Somerset Academy, also known as Athens Academy, stands on the north side of Academy Street, a short way east of Brighton Road, which carries routes 150 and 151. Joseph Bigelow, a builder from Skowhegan, put it up in 1846 with money raised by subscription, and the largest gift came from John Ware, who also gave the land. It’s two and a half stories of brick with a square two-stage tower and belfry on the ridge, and its page calls it a remarkably sophisticated piece of Greek Revival work for a rural setting. It went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, and today it’s home to the River of Life Church and a local chapter of the American Legion.
Click to explore a larger preview. The digital watermark does not appear on printed maps.
See it on a wall
The Athens map as a framed print. Swipe for more.
One of the academy’s students was Edwin F. Ladd, born in Starks in 1859. He became a chemist, taught at the North Dakota Agricultural College, crusaded for that state’s pure-food laws, and later served in the United States Senate. Two women born in Athens made their names far from Maine. Mary Jane Bean was born here in 1830, married Gay Hayden in Wisconsin, and settled with him in 1851 on an island in the Columbia River between Portland and Vancouver that came to be known as Hayden Island. Louise Harvey, born in Athens on November 8, 1859, earned her medical degree in 1892 from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, worked as a physician in Southern California, and was elected president of the Riverside County Medical Society in 1902.
Around the roads
Brighton Road, Hartland Road and Harmony Road are printed on the map, along with South Harmony Road, South Main Street and Hall Farm Road. Brighton is the neighbor to the north, the one that gave up land to Athens, and Route 151 reaches Athens from Hartland. Corsons Corner and West Athens are printed too.
This Athens map makes a handsome addition to an office, library or den, and it can teach children the geography and history of a small town with a brick academy on Academy Street. It’s made for anyone who calls Athens home, from Corsons Corner to West Athens, as it looks today. Zoom in on the preview above to explore the details, then click here to get your copy of the Athens, Maine map.
Sources
- Athens, Maine, Wikipedia
- Somerset Academy (Athens, Maine), Wikipedia
- Maine State Route 151, Wikipedia
- Brighton Plantation, Maine, Wikipedia
- Edwin F. Ladd, Wikipedia
- Mary Jane Hayden, Wikipedia
- Louise M. Harvey Clarke, Wikipedia
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Somerset County, Maine, Wikipedia
- List of municipalities in Maine, Wikipedia
