POWNAL – The Pownal Cattle Pound has been entered in the National Register of Historic Places, according in Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission.

The designation indicates that the property has been documented, evaluated and considered worthy of preservation and protection as part of the nation’s cultural heritage.

As Maine communities began to lose some of their frontier aspects in the early 19th century and assumed a more settled appearance, rudimentary civic improvements were initiated.

Among the concerns in the largely agricultural world of rural Maine was the regulation of the livestock, which were becoming numerous and could inadvertently destroy the community’s harvest when loose.

To control the problem, towns constructed shelters for the temporary control of wayward animals. The Pownal Cattle Pound is located at the foot of Bradbury Mountain and within Bradbury Mountain State Park.

Built in 1817-1818 by local resident John Tyler, the uncovered granite structure is square and sits on the west side of Route 9 about seven-tenths of a mile north of Pownal Center. The pound measures roughly 36 feet on each side and is built of dry laid stone, the vast majority of which consists of small to medium angular granite boulders in a natural slab shape. Larger, rounded boulders are used periodically in the lower courses as foundation stones.

As originally built, the walls were 4 feet thick at the bottom and 18 inches wide at the top. The height of the walls were 6 feet to the ground and they were capped with nine-inch square timbers.

The pound was placed in the National Register of Historic Places as a good example of a distinctive 19th century structure that was built by the town to regulate one specific aspect of it agricultural economy.