Down East Enterprise is a multimedia company based in Rockport, Maine, devoted to celebrating "Maine at its Best." Founded in 1954, the company’s flagship publication, Down East: The Magazine of Maine, has become synonymous with the state itself and today ranks as Maine's premier magazine with more than 100,000 subscribers around the world. Today, Down East delivers not only the best available coverage of lifestyle, destination, and "good curiosities" in Maine, but it also zooms in on hot topics for Mainers and those who love the Pine Tree State.

Fifty-five years ago, the slim first issue of a regional magazine appeared on selected newsstands throughout the length and breadth of Maine. On the cover, a stylized woodcut of a Maine harbor was topped by a hand-painted logo with the words “Down East” — a reference to the practice of sailing downwind to the east in order to reach Maine from Boston during the great age of sail. The new magazine, which was loosely modeled on The New Yorker, was the brainchild of a Mainer named Duane Doolittle.