Business | Belgrade Historical Society

Day’s Store — Belgrade Lakes

Krack Media — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:28:45 +0000

Day’s Store — Belgrade Lakes

Since the late 1950s, a humble family general store on the shores of Long Pond has grown into one of Belgrade’s most beloved local institutions.

In 1958, Jim and Mae Day, together with their son Gary and his wife Joyce, opened the doors of what would come to be known simply as Day’s Store. What began as a modest lakeside market quickly became a gathering place for both year-round residents and summer visitors to the Lakes Region.

Nestled at 182 Main Street, the store occupies a building believed to have been constructed in the mid-19th century, tying its roots not only to family tradition but also to the long history of commerce in Belgrade’s village. Over the decades, Day’s Store evolved to meet the needs of its community, offering farm-fresh groceries, pantry staples, sporting goods, fishing supplies and lakeside souvenirs. Locals and vacationers alike came for the essentials, the donuts, the coffee — and the chance to bump into a neighbor or share a story by the water’s edge.

Across four generations of the Day family, the store remained rooted in its founding values of hospitality, family and service. Diane Day and her husband Kerry Oliver carried the business forward for decades, reinforcing its role as a community hub. Younger generations — including Diane’s daughter Melissa and her husband Kirt Furbush — have continued that legacy, launching the 1958 Café within the store as a seasonal lakeside eatery, blending new ideas with the comfort of longtime tradition.

Day’s Store has long been more than a place to shop: it is a touchstone of daily life in the Belgrade Lakes region, where generations of families have stocked up for picnics, gathered for coffee, or stopped by after a day on the water. Its longevity and continued evolution reflect both the rhythms of the seasons and the enduring appeal of a family-run business at the heart of a community.

Tukey Brothers Lumber — North Belgrade

Krack Media — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 19:14:03 +0000

Tukey Brothers Lumber — North Belgrade

For more than eight decades, the Tukey name was woven into the economic life of Belgrade, shaped by the rhythms of the forest, the lakes and the steady work of a family-run mill.

The business began in the 1930s with Hugh Carlton Tukey, a young Belgrade resident who first worked at Leslie Damren’s small water-powered sawmill in North Belgrade. In 1935, Hugh purchased the operation, moved it to Log Haven Camps, and began milling lumber with his brother Earl. In those early years, logs were hauled across frozen Salmon Lake in winter, and local builders relied on the Tukeys for dependable boards at prices that now feel like a different era.

A fire destroyed the mill in 1937, but Hugh rebuilt. By the mid-1940s he had established a larger operation on a 100-acre site along Route 8 in North Belgrade, transitioning from a small custom mill into a regional wholesale lumber supplier serving central Maine.
Growth continued through the 1950s and early 1960s until another fire in 1964 forced a pause. While Hugh temporarily worked elsewhere producing cedar products, his five sons—Bill, Ken, Leroy, Dan and Peter Tukey—prepared to relaunch the family enterprise. In 1971 they purchased the business and formally created Tukey Brothers Lumber, Inc.

What followed was the transformation of a local sawmill into a modern long-log operation capable of producing studs, boards and dimensional lumber at scale. By 1973, the mill employed more than twenty people and had become one of Belgrade’s most significant employers, supporting local families and the broader building trades.

Resilience remained central to the company’s identity. When fire again destroyed the mill in 1988, the Tukeys rebuilt within months—constructing a larger, purpose-built facility from their own lumber along Route 8.

Through the 1990s and 2000s, Tukey Brothers diversified its offerings to include hardwood boards, hemlock landscape timbers, pine log-home stock and finger-joint materials. Contractors, landscapers and woodworkers across Maine came to associate the Tukey name with quality, consistency, and local craftsmanship.

In October 2020, after more than eighty years of family ownership, the Tukeys sold the North Belgrade mill to Hammond Lumber Company, another historic Maine lumber business. Hammond has continued operations at the site, preserving its role as a working mill within the region.

The history of Tukey Brothers Lumber reflects Belgrade’s long relationship with its forests and lakes—an enduring story of family enterprise, hard work, and adaptation in a changing economy.

Hammond Lumber Company – A Belgrade Story

Krack Media — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:49:06 +0000

Hammond Lumber Company – A Belgrade Story

From the farm to the forest

Clifton “Skip” Hammond was born September 22, 1927, in Belgrade, Maine, and grew up on the family farm. Like many in rural Maine, he learned early how to work with his hands, splitting his youth between chores in the barn and “woods work” in the surrounding forests. In high school, he drove a dump truck, gaining mechanical skills that would serve him for decades.

During his service in the U.S. military, Skip was stationed in the Philippines. When he returned home, he was elected Belgrade’s Road Commissioner – maintaining the town’s roads while still spending his winters harvesting timber.

A $50 gamble that changed everything

In 1953, Skip and a partner started a small, diesel-powered sawmill along Route 27 in Belgrade. The partnership didn’t last, and later that year Skip bought the whole operation for just $50 – money borrowed from his wife, Verna.

At first, it was a humble three-man crew. On fair days they worked in the woods cutting logs; when rain came, they’d saw them in an open shed. In 1958, Skip built his first forklift from the frame of an old four-wheel-drive Army truck – proof of the mechanical creativity that became his trademark.

Building a mill and a business

By 1959, Skip purchased a planer mill, allowing him to produce his own finish lumber. Eight years later, in 1967, the company established its retail division, with Skip’s son Donald spearheading sales and store operations. Skip focused on the manufacturing and mechanical side—keeping the mill running, upgrading systems, and finding ways to do more with less.

Yankee ingenuity in action

The cost of new equipment was often out of reach, but that didn’t stop Skip. Drawing on “Yankee ingenuity,” he and his crew designed and built much of what they needed themselves: conveyors and tables for the planer mill, automatic lumber stackers, additional forklifts, custom truck bodies, bark processors, warehouse structures, and more. The mill wasn’t just a workplace – it was a workshop of constant invention.

From Belgrade to the region

As the Belgrade Lakes region grew, so did Hammond Lumber. The company’s reputation for quality products and personal service spread, leading to expansions into new towns while keeping the headquarters firmly planted in Belgrade. In 2018, the acquisition of EBS Building Supplies made Hammond one of the largest independent building-supply dealers in the Northeast. In 2020, the purchase of Tukey Brothers in North Belgrade brought a second lumber mill under the company’s banner, reinforcing Belgrade as both its home and manufacturing heart.

A lasting legacy

Skip Hammond passed away in 2022, but his spirit is still everywhere – in the handcrafted equipment still in use, in the values passed down through four generations and in the company’s unbroken commitment to serving Maine’s builders, homeowners, and communities.

From a $50 bet on a small sawmill to a 900-employee enterprise with over 20 locations, Hammond Lumber remains, at its core, a Belgrade family business built on hard work, self-reliance and the belief that if you can’t buy it, you can build it.