TURNER — The Turner Cattle Pound has been entered in the National Register of Historic Places. The staff of Earle G. Shettleworth Jr., director of the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, prepared the nomination.

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 their frontier aspects in the 19th century and assume a more settled countenance, rudimentary civic improvements were initiated. Among the improvements in the largely agricultural world of rural Maine were those concerned with the regulation of the livestock.

To control the problem of loose cattle, hogs or sheep, towns constructed open air shelters, known as pounds or cattle pounds, to temporarily corral wayward animals. At least 33 of these structures are extant in Maine, and the condition of each varies from almost unrecognizable to good.

Erected in 1816 in northern Androscoggin County, the Turner Cattle Pound is a stone enclosure located at the southwest corner of the intersection of General Turner Hill Road and Kennebec Trail. Shaped like a parallelogram and measuring approximately 37 feet to a side, the structure is between four- and five-and-a-half feet tall and roughly three feet in width.

It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a good example of a 19th century stone structure that was built by the town to regulate a specific aspect of its agricultural economy.