Eartha
Katie Hargrave
In the darkness of night, a soft blue glow that is strangely comforting emits from what was once the headquarters of DeLorme Publishing Company in Yarmouth. Seen from Route 1 or Interstate 295 is Eartha, a 1:1,000,000 replica of Earth, looking as if it is hanging in space behind a wall of glass.
Eartha was the brainchild of David DeLorme, the creator of the Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, a book of maps that was – and for many Mainers still is – a fixture in their vehicles. In the late 1990s, DeLorme was building a new headquarters in Yarmouth and the centerpiece of the three-story glass atrium fronting the building would be a model of the Earth that would have the same axial tilt as the planet and rotate like it, too.
DeLorme and his staff designed and engineered the rotating globe, which features 792 panels mounted onto a truss structure of aluminum tubes that is approximately 41 feet in diameter. Two motors tilt and rotate the globe, simulating one day in 18 minutes. Completed in 1998, the Guinness Book of World Records named it the largest revolving globe in the world a year later.
Eartha, now owned by Garmin, which bought DeLorme Publishing in 2016, has its surface panels replaced about every ten years. People can get a close-up view of Eartha during business hours when the atrium is open to the public.
Author: Stephanie Bouchard
