Staples Hill

Lower Falls is the colloquial name for the eastern end of Main Street, and part of East Main Street, in Yarmouth, Maine, centered around Main Street’s intersection with Portland Street. It is also known as Falls Village or The Falls. 19th- and 20th-century homes and business that existed here are listed below, roughly from east to west.

Hose No. 2 is a former fire station in the Lower Falls area of Yarmouth, Maine, United States. Built around 1889, seven years before the town's first fire hydrants were installed, it stands in a wedge-shaped plot of land separating Main Street and Marina Road at what was formerly known as Staples Hill (named for Bethiah Staples, who lived at nearby 63 Main Street). By 1901, the town had "two hose companies of fifteen men each" and a hook and ladder company of ten men. A system of fire alarms, consisting of eight boxes, were in the process of being installed.

The First Universalist Church, also once known as the Central Parish Church, is a historic church at 97 Main Street in Yarmouth, Maine. Built in 1859–60, it is an excellent local example of religious Italianate architecture, and one of the state's few surviving churches designed by architect Thomas Holt. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. The congregation was founded in 1859, and is affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association; its current minister is Rev. Hillary Collins-Gilpatrick.

108 Main Street is a historic three-storey building in the Lower Falls area of Yarmouth, Maine.Standing at the western corner of Main Street and Portland Street, the property was built in the 1860s for Rufus York, who ran a general store out of it with his wife, Zoa. It later became the drug stores of B. L. Alden, then Melville C. Merrill, then Frank W. Bucknam (1894–1900) on the first floor and William B. Kenniston on the second floor, then (from January 1904) William Hutchinson Rowe. The building was Roger Vaughan's Rexall Pharmacy between 1945 and 1963. (Vaughan's original sign was restored to the Portland Street corner of the building in 2014 but was taken down the following year.) The building was the home of Runge's Oriental Rugs between 1990 and 2022, although the business was established in 1880. It is now occupied by FIORE.

1 Main Street is a historic building in Yarmouth, Maine. It is located in the town's Lower Falls neighborhood, beside the First Falls and near Main Street's intersection with East Main Street. It stands across the Royal River from Grist Mill Park, which was the site of several mills in the 17th century. In the 18th century, it was the site of James Craig's sawmill. In 1911, Yarmouth Manufacturing Company's electric power plant was built at the location. Later businesses on this side included a fishing, hunting and camping equipment store and Industrial Wood Products. In the present-day building are F. M. Beck, C. A. White & Associates and Maine Environmental Laboratory.

The First Falls are the first of four waterfalls in Yarmouth, Maine, United States. They are located on the Royal River, approximately a mile from its mouth with inner Casco Bay at Yarmouth Harbor and around 0.35 miles (0.56 km) downstream of the Second Falls. The river appealed to settlers because its 45-foot rise in close proximity to navigable water each provided potential waterpower sites. As such, each of the four falls was used to power 57 mills between 1674 and the mid-20th century.The local Native Americans called the First Falls (or Lower Falls) Pumgustuk, which means head of tide. (The town's early firefighters were called Pumgustuk Fire Company. Their eponymous pumper was purchased in 1856 and retired in 1928.)

Academy Hall is one of the main annex buildings on the campus of North Yarmouth Academy (NYA) in Yarmouth, Maine. Completed in 1848, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It stands immediately to the east of Russell Hall at the corner of Main Street and Bridge Street. The building was originally built for use as a classroom for NYA, which was established in 1814.The original two-storey wooden 1811 NYA school building was removed a few yards to the adjacent Bridge Street. It stood "just below the residence of the late Charles O. Rowe," the father of William Hutchinson Rowe, roughly where number 28 Bridge Street, built in 1860, is today.The south-facing façade of the building is topped by a Greek Revival belvedere. The east and west side walls of the building are identical. The terrain on which it stands slopes away to the north, towards the Royal River, revealing the above-ground brick foundation on the sides and at the rear.

Grist Mill Park is an urban park in Yarmouth, Maine, United States. Located on East Main Street, in the town's Lower Falls area, and overlooking the Royal River's First Falls from the east, the park partly occupies the former site of a 17th-century sawmill. That mill was built in October 1674 by Englishman Henry Sayward and Colonel Bartholomew Gedney. The foundations of a later mill, Lower Grist Mills, constitutes today's overlook of the river. Lower Grist Mills was built in 1813 and was in business for 36 years, grinding wheat and corn into flour using power generated by the water turbines set in the fast-flowing river below. Between 1870 and 1885, it was the site of Ansel Loring's second mill, named Yarmouth Flour Mill. The park is around 0.5 acres (0.20 ha).

Bridge Street is a historic street in Yarmouth, Maine, United States. It runs for about 0.36 miles (0.58 km) from Willow Street in the north to the town's Main Street, State Route 115, in the south. The street's elevation is around 75 feet (23 m) at each end, while its middle section, at its crossing of the Royal River, is around 13 feet (4.0 m), a drop of around 62 feet (19 m).

Russell Hall is one of the main annex buildings on the campus of North Yarmouth Academy (NYA) in Yarmouth, Maine. Completed in 1841, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It stands immediately to the west of Academy Hall at the corner of Main Street and Bridge Street. It is named for the Russell family, who donated the land on which it stands.It was originally built as a dormitory for students for NYA, which was established in 1814.The building's façade was formerly topped by a domed Greek Revival belfry, which was removed in 1900. The east and west side walls of the building are identical. The terrain on which it stands slopes away to the north, towards the Royal River, revealing the above-ground brick foundation on the sides and at the rear. Four tall chimneys rise up along each side of the roof.

Sparhawk Mill is a former cotton mill on Bridge Street in Yarmouth, Maine, United States. Built in 1840 and made of brick, it is home today to The Garrison restaurant (owned by Christian Hayes) and several other businesses. It stands, just east of the town's Second Falls, on the site of several previous mill buildings, the earliest of which was a wooden mill dating to 1817. An early business based at the mill was North Yarmouth Manufacturing Company, which was founded in 1847 by Eleazer Burbank. The mill produced cotton yarn and cloth. In 1855, the top half of the mill was rebuilt after a fire, but also to accommodate the Royal River Manufacturing Company, which was incorporated in 1857. It was one of the leading industries in Yarmouth, spinning coarse and fine yarn and seamless grain bags, of which it produced up to one thousand per day. The mill was under the management of H. J. Libby & Company (brothers Harrison, James and Francis Orville Libby) until Barnabas Freeman took over in 1869. Two years later, Freeman joined forces with Lorenzo L. Shaw to start up a cotton mill. After Freeman retired in 1888, Shaw ran the mill on his own until his death in 1907, during which time the mill's tower was completed.An iron bridge was in place in front the mill, on Bridge Street. around 1900, replacing an 1846 structure. Boarding houses, which still exist today at 107 and 109 Bridge Street, were built on the crest of the northern Bridge Street hill, providing accommodation for weavers, seamstresses and bobbin boys. In 1953, Yale Cordage, owned by Oliver Sherman Yale, occupied it. They remained tenants for the next 39 years, until 1992, when the decision was made to divide the mill's interior up into multiple business for extra revenue. The mill got its current name in the early 1950s, when Old Sparhawk Mills Company moved into the building from Cottage Road in South Portland. The building was previously own by Sparhawk Group, from which it got its name. Formerly headquartered in the mill, they have since moved to Portland, and have regional offices in Faneuil Hall, Boston, and in New York City. The mill's electric turbines still function, having been revitalized in 1986. Directly across the bridge from the mill's tower is 80 Bridge Street, which was built as the office for the above business in the early 1880s. Its architect was Francis H. Fassett. It stands on the site of the mill run by Massachusetts natives William Hawes and father-and-son duo Henry and George Cox.

The First Parish Congregational Church is a historic church at 116 Main Street in Yarmouth, Maine. The congregation was established in 1730, as the ninth church founded in what is now Maine. The current Italianate meeting house was constructed in 1867–68, and is an important surviving design of Portland architect George M. Harding. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. The present congregation is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.