This is the third installment in a limited series on Maine’s “quaint holdover,” the annual town meeting. This week we turn on the Wayback Machine and visit a Maine village about the time when Maine’s James G. Blaine was a national political powerhouse … 1884.

Tourism was beginning to look like potentially being big business. In the late 1800s, “Variety Vacationland” was just beginning to boom in Maine. To summer on the coast was becoming “a thing,” and to pop off and go skiing in the winter was gaining popularity.

To accommodate this new frontier of income, New Portland, a small town in Somerset County, needed a bridge over the Carrabassett River. At a town meeting, residents fiercely debated whether to spend the money to build it. The two camps argued back and forth. One felt the need for a bridge was only for “outtastaters” and the cost to build it shouldn’t be born by the year-round residents who would likely rarely use it. The other camp felt that “if you build it, they will come” and the whole area would benefit from the money those “outtastaters” would bring in. The debate was so heated that the meeting dragged on for hours, with no resolution in sight.

Legend has it that as the argument raged, a massive ice jam upriver broke loose, sending logs and debris crashing downstream. By pure luck (or fate), the swirling ice and debris jammed together perfectly at the crossing point, forming a natural bridge strong enough to use.

The stunned residents, realizing nature had solved their problem, voted to adjourn without spending a dime on construction. The ice jam held long enough for cooler heads to prevail so that the town could build a proper bridge before jam washed away.

In full disclosure, the truth of the story is debatable, but it’s still told as an example of classic Yankee thrift, stubbornness, and the unexpected benefits of prolonged town meetings.