The Goldman Dam, a downtown landmark that spans the Souhegan River, is an integral part of the town’s identity and history that the town should buy rather than have a conservation group tear it down, residents told selectmen earlier this week.

“Milford is named Milford for a reason,” Dale White said at the public hearing on the town’s potential purchase of the dam. “The dams are what make Milford. ... It’s part of what Milford is.”

Goldman Dam is owned by the Helen Goodwin Trust, which dissolved in 2005 and has no assets and no interest in continuing to own or maintain it, former trustee Kenyon Schlenker of Albuquerque, New Mexico, wrote the town in August. He offered to sell the dam to the town for $1 or authorize the town or a conservation organization to remove it.

The 19th-century d

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