Chances are you have never heard of a paint mine.

And you might be surprised to learn that Lisbon had its own paint mine a little more than 100 years ago. It was the foundation of a short-lived business there. Local people worked at a downtown factory beside the railroad tracks at the corner of what’s now called Winter Street.

Down through history – even as early as cave drawings – people have used paint, and the Earth itself has been the source of color and substance. Nevertheless, we seldom realize in this day and age that it wasn’t so long ago that the basis for a local paint-making business could be found right beneath our feet.

The enterprise began in 1885 as the New England Mineral Paint Co. and was restructured after its first couple of years as the Lisbon Paint Co. Its operations were out of a wooden building with a flat roof. It was said to have grinders and mixing machines powered by huge boilers.

According to an account by Richard Plante in the Lewiston Evening Journal about 60 years ago, the actual mineral paint material was found on land about half a mile away. The mining process was basic: scoop the mineral pigment off the surface of the land and load it by hand onto horse-drawn wagons. Plante said the operation covered a major expanse in those days, but very little sign of it remained a couple of decades later.

The mineral deposit needed for the making of paint was discovered on property owned by Edward N. Chamberland, a farmer and maker of wood products, when some timber was being cut on his land.

Chamberland sent a sample off for testing. A Lewiston Evening Journal story on Sept. 21, 1884, said, “A barrel of paint from Chamberland’s paint mine in Lisbon has been ground up by a Massachusetts paint firm and found highly satisfactory. It is being tested for permanency of color.”

The Lisbon company turned out cans of paint for shipment throughout the region, but the information in the old newspaper articles leave a lot of questions unanswered.

Was the paint produced in only one color? Was it all white or was it made in a variety of colors? What kind of oil or binder was used for the paint that went into the cans?

Paint-making has changed a lot over the years. In the 1800s, the use of linseed oil was introduced. White lead was a component in some types of paint manufacture, and the basic earth colors of yellow ochre and red ochre were still important.

So, was the Lisbon paint mine a deposit of a chalky clay or talc? Was it colored?

There are probably some geological records of the Androscoggin River valley that would help uncover such details. Most likely, the Lisbon paint mine made use of a mineral that no longer has commercial value.

The Lisbon firm was not a great success. John G. Tebbets, who was instrumental in founding the Worumbo Mfg. Co. in Lisbon Falls, was the paint company’s first president. Within two years, the company reorganized and Wentworth B. Jordan, who ran the famed Lisbon Hotel, was its new leader.

However, metal pigments for making paint were coming into common use, and manufacturers were turning away from mineral paint deposits.

The Lisbon Paint Co. came to an untimely end in July 1889 when fire leveled the factory.

Dave Sargent is a freelance writer and an Auburn native. You can e-mail him at [email protected].