By Nathan Tsukroff

AUBURN/LEWISTON – It’s official! Maine is now 200 years old, and citizens have finally celebrated this milestone, although a year late.

After being rescheduled twice due to the pandemic, the Maine Bicentennial Parade, presented by Poland Spring, wound its way through Auburn and Lewiston on Saturday as Mainers celebrated the state’s transition from a territory of Massachusetts to the 23^rd state.

The state was created under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Maine to join the Union as a free state, with Missouri entering a year later as a slave state to preserve the numerical balance between free and slave states.

Governor Jane Mills (D) led the parade as the Grand Marshall, followed by a string of floats and marching bands.

Mills rode in a 3-D printed boat created at the University of Maine. The float was followed by Mainers protesting her recent mandate that all healthcare workers must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 1.

Also in the parade were several local bands, clowns, unicyclists, and veterans groups.

Some 30,000 visitors had been expected to line the parade route, which started at 10 a.m. at Mills and Broad Streets in Auburn, moved up Main Street to cross the Androscoggin River into Lewison, and ended up about a block from Central Maine Medical Center.

Photographs by Twin City Times staff member Suzanne Murray, and Roxann McDonough of RAM McDonough Photography.