The story
Read it all →How Winn came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Winn.
Henry Poor & Son, a large leather firm in Boston, owned a tannery in Winn which burned down in 1892, bankrupting the company.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
–Not graded
History · Winn
Winn’s post office opened in 1857, and 45% of its homes were built before 1940
Below: maps from 1920 on and the census since 1830.
1857first post office
0on the National Register
45%homes built before 1940
Quick answers
How Winn began
When was Winn founded?
1857
The Winn post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name. Four smaller post offices, Five Islands (1852), North Winn (1858) and South Winn (1859), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
First census: 43 in 18302020 census: 399169 years
Founding year: the first Winn post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Winn’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Winn are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Lost villages4 post offices opened and closed inside today’s Winn, and 1 old place names are still on the map.Boom and bustPeaked at 936 in 1890; 399 people lived here in 2020.Old housesHalf of Winn’s homes were built before 1953.
★ What stands out · Help out
Start Winn’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Winn’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.Places that used to be
Lost post offices, old corners and burying grounds
Winn’s post office has been open since 1857. Four other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
Five Islands
Winn
North Winn
South Winn
East Winn
18501940today
Hamlets and corners on the map
East Winn
3cemeteries and burying grounds inside Winn
East WinnSnowSouth Winn
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
People over time
Winn, census by census
Peaked at 936 in 1890; 399 people lived here in 2020.
18 censuses, 1830–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Winn’s Wikipedia page.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Winn in 1882
Passages that mention Winn, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 503Read the page →
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Near the lime of the incorporation of the town of Winn, named for that proprietor, John M. Winn became involved by loaning money, by endorsements, and other ways in which sharpers overcame him, and he went, about that time, reduced from the possession of many thousands to poverty, back to Salem to live with a pair of maiden sisters, where he died on charity.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 502Read the page →
Read the text
in the drug business in Lincoln several years before and failed; besides, his father had lived for sometime in Oldtown, and at that time his mother and family lived in Orono. A short time previous to coming to Winn, Burgess had been a clerk in the Pension Department at Washington, and later in the extension of the Post-office and Custom-house at Bangor. After filling several town offices in Winn, in 1876 he was a candidate for Clerk of
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 897Read the page →
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In the sparsely settled upper Penobscot, for election purposes, a quite large territory was embraced in one voting precinct, and as late as 1853 the voters of Winn, Mattawamkeag, Woodville, and Nicatou, (Chester, being incorporated in 1834,) met for election purposes near the end of Mattawamkeag bridge. In 1853 Five Islands Plantation was incorporated, which reduced the number of voters litre. Winn was incorporated in 1857,
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Penobscot County, Maine1882 · page 284Read the page →
Read the text
The first settlement of Chester was almost contemporary with that on the other shore, Winn; and so rapid was its early progress that it had hardly any plantation existence, but was incorporated as early as 1834, while many towns, incorporated not for a quarter of a century later, in the vicinity, have a population far exceeding Chester.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Winn, 1852 to 1920
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
- 19th century
- 1852Post officeThe Five Islands post office opens
- 1857Post officeThe Five Islands post office closes
- 1857Post officeThe Winn post office opens
- 1858Post officeThe North Winn post office opens
- 1859Post officeThe North Winn post office closes
- 1890CensusPopulation peaks at 936
- 20th century
- 1920
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade
Winn, decade by decade
Today3 recent
2014
2014
2014On the map
Winn on the map, 1920 to 1988
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Winn. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1920Winn sheet · 1:62,500U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Winn.
Famous people
See all →Famous people close to Winn
Nobody well known was born in Winn itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
P
Percy SpencerAmerican engineer and inventor · b. 1894E
Elenore AbbottAmerican Art Nouveau book illustrator, scenic d… · b. 1875
E
Ernest HolmesAmerican New Thought writer · b. 1887G
George F. CarrierMathematician and Professor of Applied Mathemat… · b. 1918Stories next door
History across the town line
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
Questions about Winn’s history
What year was Winn founded?
The Winn post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
Memory lane
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Start a conversation
Sources
Where this page comes from
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (3), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.