USS Maine entering Havana Harbor on 25 January 1898, where the ship would explode three weeks later. On the right is the old Morro Castle fortress
Career (US)
Name:	Maine
Namesake:	State of Maine
Ordered:	3 August 1886
Builder:	New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York
Cost:	$4,677,788.75
Laid down:	17 October 1888
Launched:	18 November 1890
Sponsored by:	Alice Tracy Wilmerding
Commissioned:	17 September 1895
Fate:	Sunk by mysterious explosion in Havana Harbor, Havana, Cuba, 15 February 1898
Status:	Remains scuttled in the Strait of Florida, 16 March 1912
General characteristics
Type:	Pre-dreadnought battleship
Displacement:	6,682 long tons (6,789 t)
Length:	324 ft 4 in (98.9 m)
Beam:	57 ft (17.4 m)
Draft:	22 ft 6 in (6.9 m)
Installed power:	9,293 ihp (6,930 kW)
Propulsion:	2 × shafts 2 × vertical triple expansion steam engines 8 × boilers
Speed:	16.45 kn (30.47 km/h; 18.93 mph)
Complement:	374 officers and men
Armament:	2 × 2 – 10 in (254 mm) guns 6 × 1 – 6 in (152 mm) guns 7 × 1 – Driggs-Schroeder 6-pounder (57 mm (2.2 in)) guns 4 × 1 – 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) Hotchkiss guns 4 × 1 – Driggs-Schroeder 1-pounder (37 mm (1.5 in)) guns 4 × 18 in (457 mm) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Belt: 12 in (305 mm) Deck: 2–3 in (51–76 mm) Turrets: 8 in (203 mm) Conning tower: 10 in (254 mm) Bulkheads: 6 in (152 mm)

USS Maine (ACR-1) was the United States Navy's second commissioned pre-dreadnought battleship and the first U.S. Navy ship to be named after the state of Maine.^[a][1] Originally classified as an armored cruiser, she was built in response to the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo and the increase of naval forces in Latin America. Maine and her near-sister ship Texas reflected the latest European naval developments, with the layout of her main armament resembling that of the British ironclad Inflexible and comparable Italian ships. Her two gun turrets were staggered en échelon, one sponsoned out on each side of the ship, with cutaways in the superstructure to allow both to fire ahead, astern or across her deck. She dispensed with full masts thanks to the increased reliability of steam engines by the time of her construction.

Despite these advances, the Maine was out of date by the time she entered service, due to her protracted construction period and changes in the role of ships of her type, naval tactics and technology. The general use of steel in warship construction precluded the use of ramming without danger to the attacking vessel. The potential for blast damage from firing end–on or cross–deck discouraged en échelon gun placement; the practice was phased out of European naval designs before Maine entered service. The changing role of the armored cruiser from a small, heavily–armored substitute for the battleship to a fast, lightly–armored commerce raider also hastened her obsolescence. Despite these disadvantages, Maine was seen as an advance in American warship design.

The Maine is best known for her catastrophic loss in Havana harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. Sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly without warning and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. The cause and responsibility for her sinking remained unclear after a board of inquiry. Nevertheless, popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the "Yellow Press" by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!" became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War later that year. While the sinking of the Maine was not a direct cause for action, it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse between the U.S. and Spain.

The cause of the Maine's sinking remains the subject of speculation. Suggestions have included an undetected fire in one of her coal bunkers, a naval mine and her deliberate sinking to drive the U.S. into a war with Spain.

Background[link]

The Brazilian battleship Riachuelo, which prompted the building of the Maine

The delivery of the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo in 1883 and the acquisition of other modern armored warships from Europe by Brazil, Argentina and Chile shortly afterwards alarmed the United States government, as the Brazilian Navy was now the most powerful in the Western Hemisphere.^[2] The Chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee, Hilary A. Herbert, stated to Congress: "if all this old navy of ours were drawn up in battle array in mid-ocean and confronted by the Riachuelo it is doubtful whether a single vessel bearing the American flag would get into port."^[3] These developments helped bring to a head a series of discussions that had been taking place at the Naval Advisory Board since 1881. The Board knew at that time that the U.S. Navy could not challenge any major European fleet; at best, it could wear down an opponent's merchant fleet and hope to make some progress through general attrition there. Moreover, projecting naval force abroad through the use of battleships ran counter to the government policy of isolationism. While some on the Board supported a strict policy of commerce raiding, others argued it would be ineffective against the potential threat of enemy battleships stationed near the American coast. The two sides remained essentially deadlocked until the Riachuelo manifested.^[4]

The Board, now confronted with the concrete possibility of hostile warships operating off the American coast, began planning for ships to protect it in 1884. The ships would have to fit within existing docks and had to have a shallow draft to enable them to use all the major American ports and bases. Its maximum beam was similarly fixed and the board concluded that at a length of about 300 feet (91 m), the maximum displacement was thus about 7,000 tons. A year later the Bureau of Construction and Repair (C & R) presented two designs to Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney, one for a 7,500-ton battleship and one for a 5,000-ton armored cruiser. Whitney decided instead to ask Congress for two 6,000-ton warships and they were authorized in August 1886. A design contest was held, asking naval architects to submit designs for the two ships: armored cruiser Maine and battleship Texas. It was specified that Maine had to have a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph), a ram bow, double bottom, and be able to carry two torpedo boats. Her armament was specified as: four 10-inch (254 mm) guns, six 6-inch (152 mm) guns, various light weapons, and six torpedo tubes. It was specifically stated that the main guns "must afford heavy bow and stern fire."^[5] Armor thickness and many details were also defined. Specifications for Texas were similar, but demanded a main battery of two 12-inch (305 mm) guns and slightly thicker armor.^[6]

The winning design for the Maine was from Theodore D. Wilson, who served as chief constructor for C & R; a member on the Naval Advisory Board in 1881, he had designed a number of other warships for the Navy.^[7] The winning design for the Texas was from a British designer, William John, who was working for the Barrow Shipbuilding Company at that time. Both designs resembled the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo, having the main gun turrets sponsoned out over the sides of the ship and echeloned.^[8] The winning design for the Maine, though conservative and inferior to other contenders, may have received special consideration due to a requirement that one of the two new ships be American–designed.^[9]

Congress authorized construction of Maine on 3 August 1886, and her keel was laid down on 17 October 1888, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was the largest vessel built in a U.S. Navy yard up to that time.^[10]

Design[link]

Stern view of the Maine

Maine's building time of nine years was unusually protracted, due to the limits of U.S. industry at the time. (The delivery of her armor plate took three years). A fire in the yard's drafting room, where Maine's working set of blueprints were stored, causing further delay. In those nine years, naval tactics and technology changed radically and left Maine's actual role in the navy ill–defined. At the time she was laid down, armored cruisers such as Maine were intended to serve as small battleships on overseas service and were built with heavy belt armor. Great Britain, France and Russia had constructed such ships to serve this purpose and sold others of this type, including the Riachuelo, to second–rate navies. Within a decade, this role had changed to commerce raiding, for which fast, long–range vessels with only limited armor protection were needed. The advent of lightweight armor such as Harvey steel made this transformation possible.^[11]˝

As a result of these changing priorities, Maine was caught between two separate positions and could not perform either one adequately. She lacked the armor and firepower to serve as a ship–of–the–line against enemy battleships and the speed to serve as a cruiser. Nevertheless, she was still expected to fulfill more than one tactical function.^[12] In addition, because of the potential of a warship sustaining blast damage to herself from cross–deck and end–on fire, Maine's main–gun arrangement was obsolete by the time she entered service.^[8]

General characteristics[link]

Maine was 324 feet 4 inches (98.9 m) long overall, with a beam of 57 feet (17.4 m), a maximum draft of 22 feet 6 inches (6.9 m) and a displacement of 6,682 long tons (6,789.2 t).^[13] She was divided into 214 watertight compartments,^[14] with a centerline longitudinal watertight bulkhead separating the engines and a double bottom which covered the hull only from the foremast to the aft end of the armored citadel, a distance of 196 feet (59.7 m). She had a metacentric height of 3.45 feet (1.1 m) as designed and was fitted with a ram bow.^[15]

Deck plan of the Maine

Maine's hull was long and narrow, more like a cruiser than that of Texas, which was wide–beamed. Normally, this would have made Maine the faster ship of the two. However, Maine's weight distribution was not well–balanced and this slowed her considerably. Her main turrets, awkwardly situated on a cut–away gundeck, were nearly awash in bad weather. Because they were mounted closer to the ends of the ship, away from its center of gravity, Maine was also prone to greater motion in heavy seas. While she and Texas were both considered seaworthy, the latter's high hull and guns mounted on her main deck made her the drier ship.^[16]

The two main gun turrets were sponsoned out over the sides of the ship and echeloned to allow both to fire fore and aft. This met the demand at the time of Maine's design for heavy end-on fire in a ship–to–ship encounter, tactics for which involved ramming the enemy vessel. When approaching the enemy on a ramming course, having all guns trained end–on would theoretically allow the maximum firepower to be brought to bear and thus the potential for inflicting the greatest amount of damage.^[8] The wisdom of this tactic was purely theoretical at the time it was implemented. The practice of en echelon mounting began with Italian battleships designed in the 1870s by Benedetto Brin and followed by the British navy with HMS Inflexible, which was laid down in 1874, launched two years later but not commissioned until October 1881.^[17]

Maine's main armament layout limited her ability for broadside fire, a key factor when using a line of battle tactic. To allow for at least partial broadside fire, the superstructure was separated into three structures. This technically would allow both turrets to fire across the ship's deck (cross–deck fire), between the sections. This ability was still limited significantly as the superstructure restricted each turret's arc of fire.^[5]

Propulsion[link]

Vertical triple expansion engine of USS Wisconsin (BB-9), similar in general layout to those of Maine

Maine was the first U.S. capital ship to have its power plant given as high a priority as its fighting strength.^[18] Her machinery, built by the N.F. Palmer Jr. & Company's Quintard Iron Works of New York,^[19] was the first designed under the direct supervision of Arctic explorer and soon–to–be Commodore George Wallace Melville for a major ship.^[20] She had two inverted vertical triple-expansion steam engines, mounted in watertight compartments and separated by a fore–to–aft bulkhead, with a total designed output of 9,293 indicated horsepower (6,930 kW). The diameter of cylinders were 35.5 inches (900 mm) (high–pressure), 57 inches (1,400 mm) (intermediate–pressure) and 88 inches (2,200 mm) (low–pressure). Stroke for all three pistons was 36 inches (910 mm).^[14]

Mounting Maine's engines with the cylinders in vertical mode was a departure from conventional practice. Previous ships had their engines mounted in horizontal mode so they would be completely protected below the waterline. Melville, who believed a ship's engines needed ample room and any exposed parts protected by an armored deck, rejected this in favor of the greater efficiency, lower maintenance costs and higher speed that vertical mode offered.^[21][22] Also, the engines were constructed with the high–pressure cylinder aft and the low–pressure cylinder forward. This was done, according to the ship's chief engineer, A. W. Morley, so the low–pressure cylinder could be disconnected when the ship was under low power; this would allow the high– and intermediate–power cylinders to be run together as a compound engine for economical running.

Scotch two–furnace marine boiler

Eight single-ended Scotch marine boilers provided steam to the engines at a working pressure of 135 pounds per square inch (930 kPa; 9.5 kgf/cm²) at a temperature 364 °F (184 °C). On trials, she reached a speed of 16.45 knots (30.47 km/h; 18.93 mph), failing to meet her contract speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph). She carried a maximum load of 896 long tons (910 t) of coal^[23] in 20 bunkers, 10 on each side, which extended below the protective deck. Wing bunkers at each end of each fire room extended inboard to the front of the boilers.^[14] This was actually a very low capacity for a ship of Maine's rating, which limited her time at sea and her ability to run at flank speed, when coal consumption increased dramatically. Maine's overhanging main turrets prevented coaling at sea except in the smoothest of waters; otherwise, the potential for damage to a collier, herself or both vessels was extremely great.

Maine also carried two small dynamos to power her searchlights and provide interior lighting.^[24]

Maine was designed initially with a three-mast barque rig for auxiliary propulsion in case of engine failure and to aid in long–range cruising.^[25] This arrangement was to be limited to "two–thirds" of full sail power, the latter determined by a ship's tonnage and immersed cross–section.^[26] The mizzen mast was removed in 1892, after the ship had been launched but before her completion.^[25] Maine was completed with a two-mast military rig and the ship never spread any canvas.^[27]

Armament[link]

Main guns[link]

Maine's main armament consisted of four 10-inch (254 mm)/35 cal Mark II guns, which had a maximum elevation of 15° and could depress to −3°. 90 rounds per gun were carried. They fired a 520 pounds (236 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s) to a range of 20,000 yards (18,000 m) at maximum elevation.^[28] These guns were mounted in twin hydraulically powered turrets, the fore turret sponsoned to starboard and the aft turret sponsoned to port.^[2]

Battleship Maine by Frederick Nelson Atwood. Note fore 10–in. turret

The main guns were to be mounted in open barbettes initially (the C & R proposal blueprint shows them as such). During Maine's extended construction, the development of rapid–fire intermediate–caliber guns, which could fire high–explosive shells, became a serious threat and the Navy redesigned Maine with enclosed turrets. Because of the corresponding weight increase, the turrets were mounted one deck lower than planned originally.^[27][29] Even with this modification, the main guns were high enough to fire unobstructed for 180° on one side and 64° on the other side.^[14] They could also be loaded at any angle of train; the main guns of Texas, by comparison, could be loaded only when trained on the centerline or directly abeam, a common feature in battleships built before 1890.^[8]

The en echelon arrangement proved problematic. Because Maine's turrets were not counterbalanced, she heeled over if both were pointed in the same direction, which reduced the range of the guns. Also, cross–deck firing damaged her deck and superstructure significantly due to vacuum from passing shells.^[30] Because of this and the potential for undue hull stress if the main guns were fired end–on, the en echelon arrangement was not used in U.S. Navy design after Maine and Texas.^[8][30]

Secondary and light guns[link]

The six 6-inch (152 mm) guns were mounted in casemates in the hull, two each at the bow and stern and the last two amidships.^[19] Data is lacking, but they could probably depress to −7° and elevate to +12°. They fired shells that weighed 105 pounds (48 kg) with a muzzle velocity of about 1,950 feet per second (590 m/s). They had a maximum range less than 9,000 yards (8,200 m) at maximum elevation.^[31]

Six–inch gun on USS Newark (C–1). USS Maine mounted six of these.

The anti-torpedo boat armament consisted of seven 57-millimeter (2.2 in) Driggs-Schroeder six-pounder guns mounted on the superstructure deck.^[19] They fired a shell weighing about 6 lb (2.7 kg) at a muzzle velocity of about 1,765 feet per second (538 m/s) at a rate of 20 rounds per minute to a range of less than 8,700 yards (7,955 m).^[32] The lighter armament comprised four each 37-millimeter (1.5 in) Hotchkiss and Driggs-Schroeder one-pounder guns. Four of these were mounted on the superstructure deck, two were mounted in small casemates at the extreme stern and one was mounted in each fighting top.^[19] They fired a shell weighing about 1.1 pounds (0.50 kg) at a muzzle velocity of about 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s) at a rate of 30 rounds per minute to a range about 3,500 yards (3,200 m).^[33]

Maine had four 18-inch (457 mm) above-water torpedo tubes, two on each broadside. In addition, she was designed to carry two 14.8 long tons (15.0 t) steam-powered torpedo boats, each with a single 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tube and a one-pounder gun. Only one was built, but it had a top speed of only a little over 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) so it was transferred to the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island as a training craft.^[b][34]

Armor[link]

The main waterline belt, made of nickel steel, had a maximum thickness of 12 inches (305 mm) and tapered to 7 inches (178 mm) at its lower edge. It was 180 feet (54.9 m) long and covered the machinery spaces and the 10-inch magazines. It was 7 feet (2.1 m) high, of which 3 feet (0.9 m) was above the design waterline. It angled inwards for 17 feet (5.2 m) at each end, thinning to 8 inches (203 mm), to provide protection against raking fire. A 6-inch transverse bulkhead closed off the forward end of the armored citadel. The forward portion of the 2 inches (51 mm) thick protective deck ran from the bulkhead all the way to the bow and served to stiffen the ram. The deck sloped downwards to the sides, but its thickness increased to 3 inches (76 mm). The rear portion of the protective deck sloped downwards towards the stern, below the waterline to protect the propeller shafts and steering gear. The sides of the circular turrets were eight inches thick. The barbettes were twelve inches thick with their lower portions reduced to ten inches. The conning tower had ten-inch walls. Its voicepipes and electrical leads were protected by an armored tube 4.5 inches (114 mm) thick.^[35]

Two flaws emerged in Maine's protection, both due to technological developments between her laying–down and her completion. The first was the lack of adequate topside armor to counter the effects of rapid–fire intermediate–caliber guns and high–explosive shells. This was a flaw she shared with Texas^[30] The second was in the use of nickel steel, which weighed her down more than necessary. Introduced in 1889, it was the first modern steel alloy armor and, with a figure of merit of 0.67, was an improvement over the 0.6 of mild steel used until then. Harvey steel and Krupp armors, which both appeared in 1893, had merit figures of between 0.9 and 1.2, which made them roughly twice the tensile strength of nickel steel. All three armors shared the same density, about 40 pounds per square foot. The difference was weight. Six inches of Krupp or Harvey steel gave the same protective power as 10 inches of nickel. The weight thus saved could be used for the hull structure and machinery, which theoretically meant higher speed. The Navy would incorporate Harvey armor in the Indiana class battleships, designed after Maine but commissioned at roughly the same time.^[36]

Launching and delay[link]

Launching of USS Maine in 1890

Maine was launched on 18 November 1889, sponsored by Alice Tracey Wilmerding, the granddaughter of Navy Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy. Not long afterwards, a reporter wrote for Marine Engineer and Naval Architect magazine, "It cannot be denied that the navy of the United States is making rapid strides toward taking a credible position among the navies of the world, and the launch of the new armoured [sic] battleship Maine from the Brooklyn Navy Yard ... has added a most powerful unit to the United States fleet of turret ships."^[37] In his 1890 annual report to Congress, the Secretary of the Navy wrote, "The Maine ... stands in a class by herself" and expected the ship to be commissioned by July 1892.^[10]

A three–year delay now ensued as the shipyard waited for nickel steel plates for Maine's armor. Bethlehem Steel Company had promised the Navy 300 tons per month by December 1889 and had ordered heavy castings and forging presses from the British firm of Armstrong Whitworth in 1886 to fulfill its contract. This equipment did not arrive until 1889 and pushed back Bethlehem's timetable. In response, Navy Secretary Benjamin Tracy secured a second contractor, the newly–expanded Homestead mill of Carnegie, Phipps & Company. In November 1890, Tracy and Andrew Carnegie signed a contract for Homestead to supply 6000 tons of nickel steel.^[38] However, Homestead was what author Paul Krause calls "the last union stronghold in the steel mills of the Pittsburgh district." The mill had already weathered one strike in 1882 and a lockout in 1889 in an effort to break the union there. Less than two years later came the Homestead Strike of 1892, one of the largest, most serious disputes in U.S. labor history.^[39]

Operations[link]

Crew of USS Maine

Maine was finally commissioned on 17 September 1895, under the command of Captain Arent S. Crowninshield.^[40] On 5 November 1895, Maine steamed to Sandy Hook Bay, New Jersey. She anchored there two days, then proceded to Newport, Rhode Island for fitting out and test firing of her torpedoes. Afer a trip later that month to Portland, Maine, she reported to the North Atlantic Squadron for operations, training maneuvers and fleet exercises. Maine spent her active career with the North Atlantic Squadron, operating from Norfolk, Virginia along the East Coast of the United States and the Caribbean. On 10 April 1897, Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee relieved Captain Crowinshield as commander of Maine.^[41]

Crew[link]

The ship's crew consisted of 355: 26 officers, 290 sailors, and 39 marines. Of these, there were 261 fatalities:

• 2 officers and 251 sailors/marines either killed by the explosion or drowned
• 7 others were rescued but soon died of their injuries
• 1 officer later died of "cerebral affection" (shock)

Of the 94 survivors, only 16 were uninjured.^[42]

Sinking[link]

Wreckage of Maine, 1898.

Telegram sent by Captain James Forsythe, Commanding, Naval Station Key West, forwarding word from Charles Sigsbee, Captain, USS Maine of the sinking of his ship.

In January 1898, Maine was sent from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban War of Independence. Three weeks later, at 21:40 on 15 February, an explosion on board Maine occurred in the Havana Harbor. Later investigations revealed that more than 5 long tons (5.1 t) of powder charges for the vessel's six and ten-inch guns had detonated, obliterating the forward third of the ship.^[43] The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor. Most of Maine's crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters in the forward part of the ship when the explosion occurred. 266 men lost their lives as a result of the explosion or shortly thereafter, and eight more died later from injuries. Captain Sigsbee and most of the officers survived because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship. Altogether, there were only 89 survivors, 18 of whom were officers.^[44] On 21 March, the US Naval Court of Inquiry in Key West declared that a naval mine caused the explosion.^[45]

The New York Journal and New York World, owned respectively by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, gave the Maine intense press coverage but employed tactics that would later be labeled "yellow journalism." Both papers exaggerated and distorted any information they could attain, sometimes even fabricating "news" when none that fit their agenda was available. For a week following the sinking, the Journal devoted a daily average of eight and a half pages of news, editorials and pictures to the tragedy. Its editors sent a full team of reporters and artists to Havana, including Frederic Remington,^[46] and Hearst announced a reward of $50,000 "for the conviction of the criminals who sent 258 American sailors to their deaths."^[47] The World, while overall not as lurid or shrill in tone as the Journal, nevertheless indulged in similar theatrics, insisting continually that the Maine had been bombed or mined. Privately, Pulitzer believed that "nobody outside a lunatic asylum" really believed Spain sanctioned the Maine's destruction. This did not stop the World from insisting that the only "atonement" Spain could offer the U.S. for the loss of ship and life was the granting of complete Cuban independence. Nor did it stop the paper from accusing Spain of "treachery, willingness, or laxness" for failing to ensure the safety of Havana harbor.^[48] The American public, already agitated over reported Spanish atrocities in Cuba, was driven to increased hysteria.^[49]

The Maine's destruction did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain. However, the event created an atmosphere that virtually precluded a peaceful solution.^[50] The Spanish–American War began in April 1898, two months after the sinking. Advocates of the war used the rallying cry, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!"^{[51][52][53][54][55]} The episode focused national attention on the crisis in Cuba but was not cited by the William McKinley administration as a casus belli, though it was cited by some who were already inclined to go to war with Spain over their perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba.^[56][57]

Investigations[link]

In addition to the inquiry commissioned by the Spanish Government to naval officers Del Peral and De Salas, two Naval Courts of Inquiry were ordered: The Sampson board in 1898 and the Vreeland board in 1911. In 1976, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover commissioned a private investigation into the explosion and the National Geographic Society did an investigation in 1999 using computer simulations. All investigations agreed that an explosion of the forward magazines caused the destruction of the ship, but different conclusions were reached as to how the magazines could explode.^[57][58]

1898 Del Peral and De Salas Inquiry[link]

The Spanish inquiry, conducted by Del Peral and De Salas, collected evidence from officers of naval artillery who had examined the remains of Maine. Del Peral and De Salas identified the spontaneous combustion of the coal bunker that was located adjacent to the munition stores in the Maine as the likely cause of the explosion. Additional observations included that:

1. had a mine been the cause of the explosion a column of water would have been observed
2. the wind and the waters were calm on that date and hence a mine could not have been detonated by contact but using electricity, but no cables had been found
3. no dead fish were found in the harbor as would be expected following an explosion in the water
4. the munition stores usually do not explode when mines sink ships.

The conclusions of the report were not reported at that time by the American press.^[59]

1898 Sampson Board's Court of Inquiry[link]

1898 Sampson Board.

In order to find the cause of the explosion, a naval inquiry was ordered by the United States shortly after the incident, headed by Captain William T. Sampson. Ramón Blanco y Erenas, Spanish governor of Cuba, had proposed instead a joint Spanish-American investigation of the sinking.^[60] Captain Sigsbee had written that "many Spanish officers, including representatives of General Blanco, now with us to express sympathy."^[61] In a cable, the Spanish Minister of Colonies, Segismundo Moret, had advised Blanco “to gather every fact you can to prove the Maine catastrophe cannot be attributed to us.”^[62]

According to Dana Wegner, who worked with U.S. Admiral Hyman G. Rickover on his 1974 investigation of the sinking, the Secretary of the Navy had the option of selecting a board of inquiry personally. Instead, he fell back on protocol and assigned the commander–in–chief of the North Atlantic Squadron to do so. The commander produced a list of junior line officers for the board. The fact that the officer proposed to be court president was junior to the captain of the Maine, Wegner writes, "would indicate either ignorance of Navy regulations or that, in the beginning, the board did not intend to examine the possibility that the ship was lost by accident and the negligence of her captain." Eventually, Navy regulations prevailed in leadership of the board; Captain Sampson was senior to Captain Sigsbee.^[63]

The board arrived on 21 February and took testimonies of survivors, witnesses and divers (who were sent down to investigate the wreck). The Sampson Board produced its findings in two parts—the proceedings, which consisted mainly of testimonies, and the findings, which were the facts as determined by the court. Between the proceedings and the findings there was what Wegner calls "a broad gap" where the court "left no record of the reasoning that carried it from the often–inconsistent witnesses to [its] conclusion." Another inconsistency, according to Wegner, was that of only one technical witness, Commander George Converse from the Torpedo Station at Newport, Rhode Island. Captain Sampson read Commander Converse a hypothetical situation of a coal bunker fire igniting the reserve six–inch ammunition and the resulting explosion sinking the ship. He then asked Commander Converse about the feasibility of such a scenario. Commander Converse "simply stated without elaboration that he could not realize such an event happening."^[64]

The board concluded that Maine had been blown up by a mine, which in turn caused the explosion of her forward magazines. They reached this conclusion based on the fact that the majority of witnesses had heard two explosions and that part of the keel was bent inwards.^[57] The official report from the board, which was presented to the Navy Department in Washington, D.C. on 21 March, specifically stated the following:

At frame 18 the vertical keel is broken in two and the flat keel is bent at an angle similar to the angle formed by the outside bottom plating. [...] In the opinion of the court, this effect could have been produced only by the explosion of a mine situated under the bottom of the ship at about frame 18, and somewhat on the port side of the ship." (part of the court's 5th finding)

"In the opinion of the court, the MAINE was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, which caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines." (the court's 7th finding) and

"The court has been unable to obtain evidence fixing the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon any person or persons." (the court's 8th finding).^[45]

1911 Vreeland Board's Court of Inquiry[link]

Wreckage of Maine 16 June 1911.

In 1910 the decision was made to do a second Court of Inquiry. The reasons for this were the recovery of the bodies of the victims so they could be buried in the United States and a desire for a more thorough investigation. The fact that the Cuban government wanted the wreck removed from Havana harbor might also have played a role; it at least offered the opportunity to examine the wreck in greater detail than had been possible in 1898 while simultaneously obliging the Cubans. Wegner suggests that the fact this inquiry could be held without the pending risk of war, which had been the case in 1898, lent it the potential for greater objectivity than had been possible previously. Moreover, since several of the members of the 1910 board would be certified engineers, they would be better qualified to evaluate their findings than the line officers of the 1898 board had been.^[65]

Beginning in December 1910, a cofferdam was built around the wreck and water was pumped out, exposing the wreck by late 1911. Between 20 November and 2 December 1911, a court of inquiry headed by Rear Admiral Charles E. Vreeland inspected the wreck. They concluded that an external explosion had triggered the explosion of the magazines, however this explosion was farther aft and lower powered than concluded by the Sampson Board. The Vreeland Board also found that the bending of frame 18 was caused by the explosion of the magazines, not by the external explosion.^[57] After the investigation, the newly-located dead were buried in Arlington National Cemetery and the hollow, intact portion of the hull of Maine was refloated and ceremoniously scuttled at sea on 16 March 1912.^[66]

1974 Rickover investigation[link]

Admiral Rickover became intrigued with the disaster and began a private investigation in 1974. Using information from the two official inquiries, newspapers, personal papers and information on the construction and ammunition of Maine it was concluded that the explosion was not caused by a mine. Instead spontaneous combustion of coal in the bunker next to magazine was speculated to be the most likely cause. The Admiral published a book about this investigation, How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed, in 1976.^[67]

In the 2001 book Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy and the Spanish–American War, Wegner revisits the Rickover investigation and offers additional details. According to Wegner, Rickover inquired with naval historians at the Energy Research and Development Agency about the Maine after reading an article in the Washington Star-News in which its author, John M. Taylor, claimed the U.S. Navy "made little use of its technically trained officers during its investigation of the tragedy." The historians, then working with the admiral on a study of the U.S. navy's nuclear propulsion program, said they knew no details on the Maine sinking. When Rickover asked whether they could investigate the matter, the historians, now intrigued, agreed. Knowing of Rickover's "insistence on thoroughness," Wegner says, all pertaining documents were obtained and studied. These included the ship's plans and weekly reports of the unwatering of the Maine in 1912 by the chief engineer for the project, William Furgueson. These reports included numerous photos, annotated by Furgueson with frame and strake numbers on corresponding parts of the wreckage. Two experts on naval demolitions and ship explosions were brought in. Since the photos showed "no plausible evidence of penetration from the outside," they believed the explosion originated inside the ship.^[68]

Wegner suggests that a combination of naval ship design and a change in the type of coal used to fuel naval ships may have facilitated the explosion postulated by the Rickover study. Up to the time of the Maine's building, he explains, common bulkheads separated coal bunkers from ammunition lockers and American naval ships burned primarily smokeless anthracite coal. With an increase in the number of steel ships, the U.S. Navy switched to bituminous coal, which burned at a hotter temperature than anthracite coal and allowed ships to steam faster. However, Wegner explains, while anthracite coal was not subject to spontaneous combustion, bituminous coal was considerably more volatile. A number of bunker fires had, in fact, been reported aboard U.S. warships before the Maine's explosion, in several cases nearly sinking the ships. Wegner also cites a 1997 heat transfer study which concluded that a coal bunker fire of the type suggested by Rickover could have taken place and ignited the ship's ammunition.^[69]

1998 National Geographic investigation[link]

In 1998, National Geographic Magazine commissioned an analysis by Advanced Marine Enterprises (AME). This investigation, done to commemorate the centennial of the sinking of Maine, was based on computer modeling, a technique unavailable for previous investigations. The conclusions reached were "while a spontaneous combustion in a coal bunker can create ignition–level temperatures in adjacent magazines, this is not likely to have occurred on the Maine, because the bottom plating identified as Section 1 would have blown outward, not inward," and "The sum of these findings is not definitive in proving that a mine was the cause of sinking of the Maine, but it does strengthen the case in favor of a mine as the cause."^[58]

Some experts, including Admiral Rickover’s team and several analysts at AME, do not agree with the conclusion.^[58] Wegner claims that technical opinion among the Geographic team was divided between its younger members, who focused on computer modeling results, and its older ones, who weighed their inspection of photos of the wreck with their own experience. He adds that the data AME used for its findings were flawed concerning the Maine's design and ammunition storage. Worse, in Wegner's opinion, participants in the Rickover study were not consulted until AME's analysis was essentially complete, far too late to confirm the veracity of data being used or engage in any other meaningful cooperation.^[70]

2002 History Channel 'Unsolved History' Investigation[link]

In 2002, The History Channel produced an episode of the 'Unsolved History' documentaries titled 'Death Of The U.S.S. Maine' that utilized pictures, naval experts, and archival information to determine the cause of the explosion. The conclusion was that a coal bunker fire caused the explosion, and a weakness or gap was identified in the bulkhead separating the coal and powder bunkers which allowed the fire to spread from the coal bunker to the powder bunker.

False flag conspiracy theories[link]

It has been suggested by some that the sinking was a false flag operation conducted by the U.S.

• Mikhail Khazin, a Russian economist who once ran the cultural section at Komsomolskaya Pravda, speaking in a 2008 Pravda interview of the need in troubled times to change the psychology of society, to unite it, said that "the Americans blew up their own battleship Maine."^[71]
• Eliades Acosta, a prominent Cuban historian, head of the Cuban Communist Party's Committee on Culture and former director of the Jose Marti National Library in Havana, offered the standard Cuban interpretation of the sinking of the Maine: that the United States itself probably did it, in an interview to The New York Times. But Dr. Acosta adds that "Americans died for the freedom of Cuba, and that should be recognized. But others wanted to annex Cuba, and that should be criticized. If relations with the United States improve, all these things can be re-examined more fairly".^[72]
• Cuban officials argue that the U.S. may have deliberately sunk the ship to create a pretext for military action against Spain. The wording on the Maine monument in Havana describes Maine's sailors as "victims sacrificed to the imperialist greed in its fervor to seize control of Cuba",^[73] which "alludes to the theory that U.S. agents deliberately blew up their own ship to create a pretext for declaring war on Spain".^[74] (The United States occupied Cuba between 1898 and 1902 and, as promised in the Teller Amendment, did not attempt to annex the island.)

Raising and final sinking[link]

U.S.S. Maine sinking after being raised and towed from Havana harbor

For several years, Maine was left where she sank in Havana harbor, although it was evident she would have to be removed sometime. Maine took up valuable space and the buildup of silt around her hull threatened to create a shoal. In addition, various patriotic groups wanted mementos of the ship. On 9 May 1910, Congress authorized funds for the removal of Maine, the proper interment of the estimated 70 bodies still inside in Arlington National Cemetery and the removal and transport of the main mast to Arlington. Congress did not demand a new investigation into the sinking at that time. ^[75]

The Army Corps of Engineers built a cofferdam around Maine and, when the cofferdam was completed, pumped water out from inside it. By 30 June 1911, Maine's main deck was exposed. The ship forward of Frame 41 was entirely destroyed; a twisted mass of steel out of line with the rest of the hull, all that was left of the bow, bore no resemblance to a ship. The rest of the wreck was badly corroded. Army engineers dismantled the damaged superstructure and decks, which were then dumped at sea. About halfway between bow and stern, they built a concrete and wooden bulkhead to seal the after section, then cut away what was left of the forward portion. Holes were cut in the bottom of the after section, through which jets of water were used to break the mud seal holding the ship, then plugged with flood cocks which would later be used for sinking the ship.^[76]

On 13 February 1912, the engineers let water back into the interior of the cofferdam. Three days later, the interior of the cofferdam was full and Maine floated. Two days after that, Maine was towed out by the tug Osceola. The bodies of her crew were then removed to the armored cruiser North Carolina for repatriation. On 16 March, Maine was towed four miles from the Cuban coast by Osceola, escorted by North Carolina and the light cruiser Birmingham. Her sea cocks were opened and she sank in 600 fathoms (3,600 ft; 1,100 m) of water to the salutes of Birmingham and North Carolina.^[77][78]

During the salvage, remains of 66 more were found, of whom only one (an engineering officer) was identified and returned to his home town; the rest were reburied at Arlington Cemetery making a total of 229 buried there.^[79]

Memorials[link]

Arlington, Annapolis, Havana[link]

In February 1898, the recovered bodies of sailors who died on Maine were interred in the Colon Cemetery, Havana. Some injured sailors were sent to hospitals in Havana and Key West, Florida. Those who died in hospitals were buried in Key West. In December 1899, the bodies in Havana were disinterred and brought back to the United States for burial at Arlington National Cemetery^[80] where there is a memorial to those who died and which includes the ship's main mast. 165 were buried at Arlington—although remains of one sailor were exhumed for his home town; of the rest only 62 were known.^[79] Nine bodies were never recovered and 19 crewmen buried in Key West Cemetery remain there under a statue of a U.S. sailor holding an oar.^[c]

• 

  Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery centered on the ship's main mast.

• 

  The Cuban Friendship Urn on Ohio Drive, Southwest, Washington, D.C., East Potomac Park.

• 

  Monument to victims of Maine in Havana, Cuba, c. 1930.

• 

  A gun from Maine at Fort Allen Park, Portland, Maine.

The explosion-bent fore mast of Maine is located at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland,^[81] causing a traditional in-joke among midshipmen that Maine, with its main mast in Arlington National Cemetery (Northern Virginia) and its fore mast in Annapolis, is the "longest ship in the Navy".^[82]

In 1926, the Cuban government erected a memorial to the victims of Maine on the Malecon, near the Hotel Nacional, to commemorate United States assistance in acquiring Cuban independence from Spain. The memorial was damaged by crowds following the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 and the eagle on top was broken and removed.^[83] The Communist government then added its own inscription blaming "imperialist voracity in its eagerness to seize the island of Cuba" for the Maine disaster.^[83][84]

USS Maine Monument, New York City[link]

• 

  USS Maine Monument in New York City.

• 

  Memorial plaque by Charles Keck, USS Maine Memorial

• 

  Sculpture group by Attilio Piccirilli at USS Maine Memorial

• 

  Columbia Triumphant sculpture group atop USS Maine Memorial

In 1913, a USS Maine Monument designed by Harold Van Buren Magonigle was completed and dedicated in New York City. Located at the southwest corner of Central Park at the Merchant's Gate entrance to the park, the monument consists of a pylon with a fountain at its base and sculptures by Attilio Piccirilli surrounding it.^[85] A sculpture group of gilded bronze figures atop the pylon represent Columbia Triumphant, her seashell chariot being drawn by three hippocampi. The bronze for this group reportedly came metal recovered from the guns of the Maine. On the park side of the monument is fixed a memorial plaque that was cast in metal salvaged from the ship.^[86] It is not known how many of these plaques by sculptor Charles Keck were produced, but they can be found in many locations across the United States.

Other memorials[link]

• In 1914, one of Maine's six anchors was taken from the Washington Navy Yard to City Park in Reading, Pennsylvania, and dedicated during a ceremony presided over by Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was then assistant secretary of the navy.^[87]
• A brass torpedo tube hatch recovered from the Maine is on display at Lakeside Park in Oakland, CA. It was stolen from its mount in the park in May 2011, but quickly recovered by authorities after the thieves attempted to sell it for scrap metal.^[88]
• A memorial consisting of the shield and scrollwork from the bow of the ship is located in Bangor, Maine.
• The base of Maine's conning tower is currently on display at Westbrook Veterans' Memorial Park in Canton, Ohio, hometown of President McKinley.
• Shells from the main battery were placed along with small plaques as memorials at the Soldier's Home in Marion, Indiana (now a VA Hospital and national cemetery), at the St. Joseph County Courthouse lawn in South Bend, Indiana, at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington and at the old soldiers' home in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A shell from the main battery is located just inside of the Pine St. entrance of city hall in Lewiston, Maine.
• A monument for Maine with a portion of a bronze engine room ventilator shaft is located in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey.^[89]
• The capstan of the ship was secured for Charleston, South Carolina where it was displayed on the Battery until 2006; it is currently awaiting reinstallation.^[90]

See also[link]

Battleships portal

• U.S. Navy memorials
• List of battleships of the United States Navy

References[link]

Explanatory notes

Citations

Bibliography

• Alden, John D. (1989). American Steel Navy: A Photographic History of the U.S. Navy from the Introduction of the Steel Hull in 1883 to the Cruise of the Great White Fleet. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-248-2. 
• Cowan, Mark D.; Sumrall, Alan K. (2011). "Old Hoodoo": The Battleship Texas: America's First Battleship, 1895–1911. Charleston, South Carolina: CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-4662-4894-6. 
• Friedman, Norman (1984). U.S. Cruisers, An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-718-0. 
• Friedman, Norman (1985). U.S. Battleships, An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-715-9. 
• Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. New York: Mayflower Books. ISBN 978-0-312-24023-3. 
• Krause, Paul, ed. (1992). The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892: politics, culture, and steel. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 978-0-8229-5466-8. 
• Love, Robert W. Jr., ed. (1992). History of the U.S. Navy, Volume One: 1775–1941. Harriburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-1862-2. 
• Marolda, Edward J., ed. (2001). Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy and the Spanish-American War. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-8317-0302-8. 
• Miller, David, ed. (2001). Illustrated Directory of Warships of the World. Osceloa, WI: Zenith Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-1127-1. 
• Misa, Thomas J., ed. (1999). A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865–1925. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-6052-2. 
• Morrison, Samuel Loring, ed. (2003). The American Battleship. Osceloa, WI: Zenith Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-0989-6. 
• Musicant, Ivan (1998). Empire by Default: The Spanish-American War and the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-3500-1. 
• O'Toole, G.J.A. (1984). The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898. New York: W.W. Norton. 
• Paine, Lincoln P. (2000). Warships of the World to 1900. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-395-98414-7. 
• Parkinson, Roger (2008). The Late Victorian Navy: The Pre-Dreadnought Era and the Origins of the First World War. Rochester, New York: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-1-84383-372-7. 
• Pater, Alan F., ed. (1968). United States Battleships: The History of America's Greatest Fighting Ships. Beverly Hills, California: Monitor Book Company. LCCN 68-17423. 
• Putnam, William Lowell (2000). Arctic Superstars. New York: Amer Alpine Club. ISBN 978-0-930410-82-7. 
• Reilly, John C.; Scheina, Robert L. (1980). American Battleships 1886–1923: Predreadnought Design and Construction. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-524-7. 
• Rickover, Hyman George (1995). How the Battleship Maine was Destroyed, Second Revised Edition.. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-717-4. 
• Wegner. ^{[Full citation needed]}
• Wisan. ^{[Full citation needed]}
• "Maine". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History & Heritage Command. http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/m2/maine-i.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• "USS Maine (1895–1898), originally designated as Armored Cruiser # 1". Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 17 November 1998. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-m/maine.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• "Sinking of USS Maine, 15 February 1898". Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/spanam/events/maineskg.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• "The Destruction of USS Maine". Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 13 August 2003. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq71-1.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• "Casualties on USS Maine". Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 6 February 1998. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq71-2.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• "Survivors of USS Maine". Naval History & Heritage Command. US Navy Department. 6 February 1998. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq71-3.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• "Battleship Maine". The Spanish American War Centennial Website. www.spanamwar.com. 1996. http://www.spanamwar.com/maine.htm. Retrieved 2 April 2012. 
• Crawford, Michael J.; Hayes, Mark L.; Sessions, Michael D. (30 November 1998). The Spanish–American War : Historical Overview and Select Bibliography. Naval Historical Center, U.S. Department of the Navy. http://www.history.navy.mil/biblio/biblio7/biblio7a.htm. Retrieved 2 October 2011. 
• Morley, Chief Eng. A. W., U.S.N. (1895). Contract Trial of the United States Armored Cruiser Maine. Journal of the Society of American Engineers. http://www.twc-transcribing.com/USSMaine/USS%20Maine%20Articles/USSMaine_Stats01.htm. Retrieved 2 April 2012. 

Further reading[link]

• Allen, Thomas B. "Remember the Maine?" National Geographic, Vol. 193, No 2 (February 1998): 92–111.
• Allen, Thomas B. ed. "What Really Sank the Maine?" Naval History 11 (March/April 1998): 30–39.
• Blow, Michael. A Ship to Remember: The Maine and the Spanish-American War. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1992. ISBN 978-0-688-09714-1.
• Phiip S. Foner. The Spanish-Cuban-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism 1895–1902. 2 Volumes, New York/London 1972 (very detailed with plenty of sources from US archives).
• Samuels, Peggy and Harold Samuels 1995. Remembering the Maine. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC and London ISBN 978-1-56098-474-0.
• Weems, John Edward. The Fate of the Maine. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 1992. ISBN 978-0-89096-501-6.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: USS Maine (ACR-1)

• USS Maine (ACR-1) from the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons
• United States Navy, Bureau of Steam Engineering, Specifications for triple-expansion twin-screw propelling machinery for U.S.S Maine at Google Books. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
• USS Maine Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery
• Naval History & Heritage Command (history.navy.mil):
  • USS Maine
  • The Destruction of the USS Maine
• From spanamwar.com:
  • Background information on the Maine
  • Theories on the loss of the Maine
  • Official 1898 Court of Inquiry Report
  • How Likely was a Coal Bunker Fire Aboard the Battleship MAINE?
• USS Maine Pictures from the Library of Congress American Memory website
• Photo gallery of Maine at NavSource Naval History — Construction – Active Service
• USS Maine from NARA
• Google Books:
  • 1912 report of salvage of the USS Maine
  • 1913 US Army Corps of Engineers report of salvage of the USS Maine

Four ships of the United States Navy have borne the name USS Maine, named for the 23rd state.

• The first USS Maine (ACR-1) was a second-class pre-dreadnought battleship (launched in 1889, originally classified as an armored cruiser) whose sinking by an explosion, either internal or by a mine, on February 15, 1898 at 9:40 p.m. killing 266, precipitated the Spanish-American War.

• The second USS Maine (BB-10), launched in 1901, was the lead ship of her class of battleships. She participated in the voyage of the Great White Fleet, and was decommissioned in 1920 to be sold for scrap in 1923.

• The third USS Maine (BB-69) was a Montana class battleship, and was canceled in 1943.

• The fourth USS Maine (SSBN-741) is an Ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarine, launched in 1994 and still in active service as of 2011.

This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists.

State of Maine
Flag Seal
Nickname(s): "The Pine Tree State"
Motto(s): "Dirigo" (Latin for "I lead" or "I direct")
Official language(s)	None
Demonym	Mainer[1]
Capital	Augusta
Largest city	Portland
Largest metro area	Portland-South Portland-Biddeford
Area	Ranked 39th in the U.S.
- Total	35,385 sq mi (91,646 km2)
- Width	210 miles (338 km)
- Length	320 miles (515 km)
- % water	13.5
- Latitude	42° 58′ N to 47° 28′ N
- Longitude	66° 57′ W to 71° 5′ W
Population	Ranked 41st in the U.S.
- Total	1,328,188 (2011 est)[2]
- Density	43.0/sq mi  (16.6/km2) Ranked 38th in the U.S.
Elevation
- Highest point	Mount Katahdin[3][4][5] 5,270 ft (1606.4 m)
- Mean	600 ft  (180 m)
- Lowest point	Atlantic Ocean[4] sea level
Before statehood	District of Maine
Admission to Union	March 15, 1820 (23rd)
Governor	Paul LePage (R)
President of the Senate	Kevin Raye (R)[6]
Legislature	Maine Legislature
- Upper house	Senate
- Lower house	House of Representatives
U.S. Senators	Olympia Snowe (R) Susan Collins (R)
U.S. House delegation	Chellie Pingree (D) Michael Michaud (D) (list)
Time zone	Eastern: UTC-5/-4
Abbreviations	ME US-ME
Website	www.maine.gov

Maine (ⁱ/ˈmeɪn/) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost portion of New England. It is known for its scenery—its jagged, mostly rocky coastline, its low, rolling mountains, its heavily forested interior and picturesque waterways—as well as for its seafood cuisine, especially lobsters and clams.

For thousands of years, indigenous peoples were the only inhabitants of the territory that is now Maine. At the time of European encounter, several Algonquian-speaking peoples inhabited the area. The first European settlement in Maine was by the French in 1604 on Saint Croix Island, by Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons. The first English settlement in Maine, the short-lived Popham Colony, was established by the Plymouth Company in 1607. A number of English settlements were established along the coast of Maine in the 1620s, although the rugged climate, deprivations, and conflict with the local peoples caused many to fail over the years. As Maine entered the 18th century, only a half dozen European settlements survived. Patriot and British forces contended for Maine's territory during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Maine was part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until 1820, when it voted to secede from Massachusetts. On March 15, 1820, it was admitted to the Union as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise. Maine is the 39th most extensive and the 41st most populous of the 50 United States.

Geography[link]

To the south and east is the Atlantic Ocean and to the north and northeast is New Brunswick, a province of Canada. The Canadian province of Quebec is to the northwest. Maine is both the northernmost state in New England and the largest, accounting for nearly half the region's entire land area. Maine has the distinction of being the only state to border just one other state (New Hampshire to the west). Maine is the easternmost state in the United States both in terms of its extreme points and its geographic center. The municipalities of Eastport and Lubec are, respectively, the easternmost city and town in the United States. Estcourt Station is Maine's northernmost point, as well as the northernmost point in New England. (For more information see extreme points of the United States).

Maine's Moosehead Lake is the largest lake wholly in New England, as Lake Champlain is located between Vermont and New York. A number of other Maine lakes, such as South Twin Lake, are described by Thoreau. Mount Katahdin is both the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, which extends southerly to Springer Mountain, Georgia, and the southern terminus of the new International Appalachian Trail which, when complete, will run to Belle Isle, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Maine has several unique geographical features. Machias Seal Island and North Rock, off its easternmost point, are claimed by both the U.S. and Canada and are within one of four areas between the two countries whose sovereignty is still in dispute, but it is the only one of the disputed areas containing land. Also in this easternmost area is the Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere.

Maine is the least densely populated U.S. state east of the Mississippi River. It is called the Pine Tree State; nearly 90% of its land is forested.^[7] In the forested areas of the interior lie much uninhabited land, some of which does not have formal political organization into local units (a rarity in New England). The Northwest Aroostook, Maine unorganized territory in the northern part of the state, for example, has an area of 2,668 square miles (6,910 km²) and a population of 27, or one person for every 100 square miles (260 km²).

Maine is in the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome. The land near the southern and central Atlantic coast is covered by the mixed oaks of the Northeastern coastal forests. The remainder of the state, including the North Woods, is covered by the New England-Acadian forests.^[8]

Maine has almost 230 miles (400 km) of coastline (and 3,500 miles (5,600 km) of tidal coastline).^[9][10] West Quoddy Head is the easternmost piece of land in the contiguous 48 United States. Along the famous rock-bound coast of Maine are lighthouses, beaches, fishing villages, and thousands of offshore islands, including the Isles of Shoals, which straddle the New Hampshire border. There are jagged rocks and cliffs and many bays and inlets. Inland are lakes, rivers, forests, and mountains. This visual contrast of forested slopes sweeping down to the sea has been summed up by American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay of Rockland and Camden, Maine in "Renascence":

The coast in Maine near Acadia park.

"All I could see from where I stood

was three long mountains and a wood

I turned and looked the other way

and saw three islands in a bay"

Geologists describe this type of landscape as a "drowned coast," where a rising sea level has invaded former land features, creating bays out of valleys and islands out of mountain tops.^[11] A rise in the elevation of the land due to the melting of heavy glacier ice caused a slight rebounding effect of underlying rock; this land rise, however, was not enough to eliminate all the effect of the rising sea level and its invasion of former land features.

Much of Maine's geography was created by heavy glacial activity at the end of the last ice age. Prominent glacial features include Somes Sound and Bubble Rock. Carved by glaciers, Somes Sound is considered to be the only fjord on the eastern seaboard and reaches depths of 175 feet (50 m). The extreme depth and steep drop-off allow large ships to navigate almost the entire length of the sound. These features also have made it attractive for boat builders, such as the prestigious Hinckley Yachts. Bubble Rock is what is known as a "glacial erratic" and is a large boulder perched on the edge of Bubble Mountain in Acadia National Park. By analyzing the type of granite, geologists were able to discover that glaciers carried Bubble Rock to its present location from the town of Lucerne — 30 miles (48 km) away.

Boothbay Harbor

Acadia National Park is the only national park in New England.

Areas under the protection and management of the National Park Service include:^[12]

• Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor
• Appalachian National Scenic Trail
• Maine Acadian Culture in St. John Valley
• Roosevelt Campobello International Park near Lubec
• Saint Croix Island International Historic Site at Calais

Climate[link]

Maine experiences a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb), with warm (although generally not hot), humid summers. Winters are cold and snowy throughout the state, and are especially severe in the northern parts of Maine. Coastal areas are moderated somewhat by the Atlantic Ocean. Daytime highs are generally in the 75–80 °F (24–27 °C) range throughout the state in July, with overnight lows in the high 50s°F (around 15 °C). January temperatures range from highs near 32 °F (0 °C) on the southern coast to overnight lows averaging below 0 °F (−18 °C) in the far north.^[13] The state's record high temperature is 105 °F (41 °C), set in July 1911, at North Bridgton.^[14] Maine has fewer days of thunderstorms than any other state east of the Rockies, with most of the state averaging less than 20 days of thunderstorms a year. Tornadoes are rare in Maine, with the state averaging fewer than two per year, mostly occurring in the southern part of the state.^[15]

In January 2009, a new record low temperature for the state was set at Big Black River of −50 °F (−46 °C), tying the New England record.^[13]