In 1794, Jabez Ricker traded his land in Alfred to the local Shaker community for property in present-day Poland. Shortly after his arrival, travelers came looking for a place to stay, and the Ricker family began its first inn. In 1844, Hiram Ricker, a grandson of Jabez, discovered the curative powers of the mineral spring on the property and began to share the water with family and friends. Within another half century, sales of the water prompted the building of the Poland Spring House, a summer hotel that eventually had more than 500 rooms and the first golf course at a resort in the country; the purchase of the Maine State Building from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago; and many other ingenious and trend-setting innovations.
