Giant Candlestick Telephone (Bryant Pond)

Bryant Pond, Maine, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A 14-foot black steel candlestick telephone with a hand crank stands on the common beside the post office in Bryant Pond, in the town of Woodstock, Maine. Sculptor Gil Whitman made it, and it was dedicated in October 2008.

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Giant Candlestick Telephone (Bryant Pond)

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Approximate location · 44.378° N, 70.646° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Bryant Pond kept hand-crank telephones until 1983, and its way of remembering them is a candlestick phone 14 feet tall.

The Sun Journal reported that a large crowd braved rain to see the sculpture dedicated on the village common outside the post office in October 2008. Town Manager Vern Maxfield said the event marked the 25th anniversary of the last call on a hand-crank phone belonging to the Bryant Pond Telephone Company, on 11 October 1983. The company, owned by Barbara and Elden Hathaway, was acquired that year by Oxford County Telephone & Telegraph.

The black steel statue was created by Woodstock sculptor Gil Whitman, who was commissioned by the town to work on the common. The paper said Whitman fabricated the pieces and T.W. Dick of Gardiner put them together. It reported the sculpture's weight as 1 ton in 2008 and as 3,000 pounds in 2010. The paper said the crank was operational and that Whitman planned to add a bell that would sound when it was turned, along with a plaque in memory of the Hathaways. Whitman said of the spot: "This lot right here is where it all began." He noted that the town's train station once stood nearby.

In February 2025 the Sun Journal reported that a Maine Department of Transportation plan for Route 26 through Bryant Pond included improvements to the layout and function of "Telephone Park", and that selectmen had options to choose from. The paper said the phone commemorates the town having had the last hand-crank phone system in the country.

The Sun Journal placed it outside the post office on North Main Street.

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An outdoor sculpture on the village common beside the post office in Bryant Pond. The crank was operational at its 2008 dedication. A 2025 state plan for Route 26 includes possible changes to the park layout, so the surroundings may change.

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On the town common outside the post office, North Main Street, Bryant Pond village, Woodstock, Maine. A 2008 report said the town did not own the common but worked with the landowner.

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