Temple is a town in Franklin County, Maine, United States. It is located at the end of Maine State Route 43 (Temple Road), one of only two towns in Maine to be situated as such. The population was 572 at the 2000 census. The town contains a school (now the Temple Historical Society), a no longer in use store (Hodgkins Store, built in the early 20th century, which also houses a post office), a theatre (Temple Stream Theater; formerly the Congregational Church), a derelict baseball field, and a small fire station. What is now Maple Street was formerly named Cowturd Lane, due to "the smell of manure, fresh from cows walking in the road on their way to the barn and back, hanging in the air like swamp gas. " A Soldier's Son: An American Boyhood During World War II was written by Temple native and still part-time resident John E. Hodgkins about life in the town before, during and after the conflict. It was published in 2006 by Down East Books. Bill Roorbach, another Temple native, who wrote the foreword to Hodgkins' book, released his own book on Temple Stream, entitled Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey, in 2006.