📍Durham, Maine, USA
1958 – 1966“Stephen King's father left the family when he was two, and his mother, Nellie Ruth, moved her two sons around the country for years, taking whatever work she could find. In 1958, when Stephen was eleven, they settled in West Durham, Maine, in a small house on Runaround Pond Road in the hamlet of Methodist Corner, so that Ruth could care for her elderly parents. Across the road were his aunt Ethelyn and uncle Oren, the Methodist church and, a few doors down, the one-room schoolhouse where he studied. Durham was rural, poor and quiet, with woods, fields, ponds and long, dark winters, the kind of small Maine community that would become the setting of so much of his fiction. In the attic above his aunt and uncle's garage, Stephen found a box of his absent father's old paperbacks, including stories by H.P. Lovecraft, and some of his father's own attempts at writing. It was, he later said, the moment he discovered his vocation. He and his brother David produced a local newspaper, Dave's Rag, and he began selling his own stories to school friends. He went on to Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966, and then the University of Maine, while his mother worked long hours in low-paid jobs to support the family. His first novel, Carrie, was published in 1974, and he became one of the best-selling authors in the world. Fictional towns such as Castle Rock and Derry owe much to the Durham of his boyhood, and he has remained a Mainer, living and supporting libraries and schools in the state.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today