Privatization, Maine Woods

Then, in 1998, the Plum Creek Company of Seattle, the largest private timberland owner in the nation, bought 1 million acres of the Maine Woods near Greenville, and promised a better future. 

Most of Maine and all of the North Woods were publicly owned and part of Massachusetts when the American Revolution ended. But in an experiment in privatization unrivaled before or since, the government of Massachusetts, followed by the leaders of the new state of Maine, decided to auction off not just a portion of the lands, as other states had done, but virtually all the public lands and forests. This served the dual purposes of paying off war debt from the revolution and encouraging homesteaders to settle in the sparsely populated territory, with its immense natural resources. 

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