Poland Spring Water Bottling Plant, Maine

One of the leading brands of bottled water in the United States is Poland Spring. For years the sole source of this water was an aquifer near a small town in Maine of the same name, where the company operates its principal bottling plant. The company has activated other wells, even in other states, to meet the demand, but trucks still bring much of it here for bottling, with the exception of bottling plants further away, in Syracuse, New York and Allentown, Pennsylvania. The first spring was settled here in 1793, and soon the water was famous for its healing qualities. A large resort sprung up. The heyday for the site was the turn of the century, when Poland Spring water was touted at the Columbia Exposition in Chicago. Today, the hotel portion of the resort on the hill is still running, though it's fairly underused, and for years the historic structures like the old bath house and water temple were in a state of disrepair. Perrier, which bought the Poland Spring Company in 1980, began restoring some of the old site (Perrier was acquired by Nestle in 1992). The modern bottling plant is located in the woods next to the Range Ponds, and the facilities are housed in the standard sprawling blue metal shed.