New sign goes up with hopes for a new beginning

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Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal

Livermore Falls Town Manager Jim Chaousis, left, presented a new "Welcome to Livermore Falls" sign on Monday near the Jay line. At right is Heidi Wilde, an artist from Livermore Falls who painted the sign.

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Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal

Heidi Wilde, a Livermore Falls artist, in front, looks over the sign she painted for the Town of Livermore Falls as her companion, Phil Poirier, right standing on ground, talks with her Monday. Livermore Falls highway foreman Bill Nichols, on ladder, attaches the backboard for the sign with the help of Town Manager Jim Chaousis, back left. Resident Fran Szoztek, left, looks on.

LIVERMORE FALLS — A new "Welcome to Livermore Falls" sign went up Monday morning near the Jay line with the hopes of a new beginning for the town.

Local artist Heidi Wilde of Livermore Falls created and painted the sign. Selectman Alphonso Barker cut it out. Caitlin Chaousis stained the wooden backboard. And, Livermore Falls highway foreman Bill Nichols hung it on the backboard assisted by Town Manager Jim Chaousis, Caitlin's father, and Phil Poirier, a representative of the Downtown Betterment Group, along with others.

"Our old sign was a little beat up and dilapidated, but it was the entrance to Livermore Falls," Chaousis said Monday during a brief ceremony. The former Wausau Paper mill, which straddles town lines, was in the background along with the Androscoggin River.

The old sign represented what was for more than a century, a mill town.

"I think it kind of represented town pride and self-sufficiency of Livermore Falls," Chaousis said.

Like the sign's condition and the closure of Wausau Paper's Otis Mill in June, the town's pride also eroded a little, he said.

"The old sign represented the past that eroded over time, and the new sign represents a new future," Chaousis said. "This is a new introduction to Livermore Falls.  . . . Livermore Falls needs to be introduced because we are changing. It's not a mill town anymore."

The mill was sold last week and the new owners are Otis Ventures LLC, with the principals of Mary Howes and Tim DeMillo, wife and husband of Jay, who have hopes to transform it into a business and industrial complex.

Hopefully, it will offer a diverse economy, Chaousis said.

Business facades on Main and Depot streets are being renovated. Park Street has been paved and there are plans for the Route 4 corridor from Bridge Street in Livermore Falls to Pineau Street in Jay to be reconstructed. A new bike/walk path is nearly completed at the Livermore Falls Recreation Field.

The new sign also symbolizes some of the ongoing coordination between Livermore Falls and Jay, Chaousis said. "I'm very happy the sign went up. I'm very happy people stepped up . . . Welcome to Livermore Falls."

dperry@sunjournal.com