[2] It is perhaps best known for being at the northern terminus of Interstate 95 and as the birthplace of Samantha Smith, a goodwill ambassador as a child during the Cold War.

[5] Decades after the American Revolutionary War, Anglo-American pioneers Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton started a village.

When the Aroostook War flared in 1839 over the border with Canada, three companies of the 1st Artillery Regiment manned Hancock Barracks under Major R. M. Kirby.

Major Kirby helped to restrain the twelve companies of militia that Maine sent there from starting a shooting war.

[7] The U.S. Army installed its first transatlantic[8] radio intelligence station 1.5 miles east of the town center of Houlton, Maine,[9] during World War I.

The AT&T Transoceanic Receiver Station was located at the end of Hand Lane, 46°07′37″N 67°53′03″W / 46.1270°N 67.8841°W / 46.1270; -67.8841, two miles west of the town center.

The receiver station worked with the large long-wave transmitting facility of AT&T located at RCA[12] in Rocky Point, New York.

On its site is a new large-scale housing development, which has also been named Houlton, in honour of the historic links with its American namesake.

[15] Prior to the United States' entry into World War II, American army pilots flew planes to the base.

They could not fly the planes directly into Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth, because that would violate the official United States position of neutrality.

Local farmers used their tractors to tow the planes into Canada, where the Canadians closed the Woodstock highway so that aircraft could use it as a runway.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force pilot, officer George Newall Harrison,[16] died on December 5, 1942, when he crashed 500 yards south of the runway while ferrying a Hudson Bomber to Britain.

Few other New Zealand casualties from World War II were buried in the United States of America.

His 19-year-old radio operator, Sergeant Henry Bordewick,[18] also died and was buried there; he was from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

A solar eclipse across the United States was expected on April 8, 2024, and Houlton was known to be in the path of totality.

The turnout was even greater than planners had expected because of bad weather in other parts of the country, resulting in a last-minute rush of visitors to Houlton.

Welcome news as the sudden unexpected influx of tourist seeking clear skies only added to the street party atmosphere.

A large (photo op) banner was unveiled, celebrating Houlton’s being the Great American Eclipse's final destination proclaiming, "The End is Here," and the town's bust of George Washington was outfitted with a pair of oversized eclipse glasses.

The Houlton/Woodstock Border Crossing, located to the east of downtown Houlton, marks the northern terminus of Interstate 95.

Typically for Maine, Houlton has a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb) with warm summers and cold, snowy winters comparable to Fargo.