Sebago Lake

On July 4, 1866, a fire began tearing through Portland while the city’s firefighters were attending a holiday picnic at Sebago Lake. They raced back, but by the time they reached the harbor to deploy their hoses, the tide had gone out. For 15 hours, the city burned, and 1,500 buildings turned to ash.

Three years later, on Thanksgiving Day, water from Sebago Lake reached Portland for the first time, completing a 16-mile journey through newly laid pipes. The timing was poetic: a city gave thanks for the very thing that might have saved it.

Today, the lake supplies nearly 200,000 people, roughly one in six Mainers. Its water is so pristine that Sebago is one of only about 50 public surface water supplies in the United States permitted to operate without filtration. It is disinfected before reaching the tap, but the surrounding forests do much of the filtering naturally, absorbing pollutants before they reach the lake.

Sebago is also Maine’s second-largest lake and one of its busiest summer destinations. Swimmers and boaters spend their afternoons in the same water that will flow from their kitchen taps. The lake that failed Portland once has sustained it ever since.