The Airline Road Location and Background History Migrations and Towns Traveler: The McDonald Children History
	Reportedly, portions of the route had been used as portages during the colonial days, as in the John Gyles account of the late 1600s. In the fall of 1822, an approximately 90 mile (145-kilometre) road was completed between the Bangor area and Calais, which opened remote parts of the Bingham Estates Penobscot tract of land. It was originally called the "Schoodic Road" or "Black's Road". A stage was begun over the route in 1856, mail service in 1857, and the road rebuilt in 1858, when it became known as the "Airline". It served cattle drovers, facilitated frontier settlement, and carried migration between Maine and New Brunswick.
	View from the "Whale's Back" on the Airline Road near Aurora, Maine (photograph by Matthew Hatvany, spring 1987).