The United State was at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy by mid-December of 1941. Feelings of patriotism and vulnerability surged in the Kennebunks. A few years ago, I wrote a piece about Location 155 Plane Spotting Tower erected at Cape Porpoise under the direction of The Portland Harbor Defense Board. Another tower was built in Kennebunk to defend a battery near Portsmouth Harbor.

While Location 154 was still being constructed, Civilian Defense Volunteers watched for planes from atop the Pythian Block on Main St in Kennebunk. Local Newspaper reporters were cryptic when describing the location of the new plane spotting facilities in case the enemy was secretly subscribed. The editor for one newspaper wrote that it was being “erected on our biggest hill.”

Construction of the new Location 154 Base-End Station at Great Hill in Kennebunk was completed by the Army on a leased lot in 1943 for $16,514.00. It was a five-story square reinforced concrete tower with a false steeple on top. According to ‘New England Defenses’, “a wooden cottage surrounded the first two stories of the tower to aid in camouflage and provide barracks for the crew manning the tower. The reinforced concrete walls were 10″ thick and were splinter proof.”

The tower on Great Hill was destroyed by the landowner on October 8, 1949, shortly after the Army’s land lease was up. Its name, Gelaspus Point, is puzzing. There was a John Gillespie who owned Libby’s Point aka Strawberry Island in the 18th Century. That land mass was connected to the mainland at high tide then and was sometimes referred to as Gillespie’s Point. I surmise that the name morphed into Gelaspus Point and moved over to the neighboring promontory, Great Hill but I cannot prove that to you.

Gelaspus Point tower was very similar in design to the Halibut Point firing control tower still standing in Rockport, MA., the only difference being that the attached barracks and mess hall on Great Hill had a simpler roofline.