In the late 1990s, Lew-Ellyn Hughes worked as a nurse in Bangor, but her heart was in the mountains of Western Maine. A former military brat who spent childhood summers at a family camp on Moosehead Lake, she longed to see wilderness out her window each day, not concrete buildings and city streets. Her dream came true in 2001 when she bought an 1890s farmhouse in Stratton and, despite her lack of experience, opened a five-room bed-and-breakfast inn to help pay the mortgage. Farmhouse on the Edge of Town is a collection of essays and newspaper articles written by Hughes as she learned to run an inn, opened a bakery, and fell in love with a small town and its people.