LEWISTON – In a corner of the Bates Mill’s oldest building, a century-old loom awaits workers to feed it thread. Shuttles wait to slide. Spools wait to spin.

“The loom came into this place covered in rust, grease and cotton lint,” said Elliott Epstein, a Lewiston lawyer. “It was covered like Father Christmas.”

Volunteers washed away years of grime.

The SUV-sized contraption now sits polished and shiny, the centerpiece of a new museum commemorating the area’s textile industry.

It’s called Museum LA.

On Aug. 1 the place will open to the public for the first time, ending a seven-year struggle to find the artifacts, a suitable place, and the money to put them together.

“If there were no museum to preserve the artifacts of these mills, they would have simply disappeared,” said Epstein, who has voluntarily led the effort since 1996.

The result is a small 3,000-square foot museum that could grow and grow. “We could easily fill another 10,000 square feet,” said Epstein.

The museum is located in the space once occupied by The Movie Mill, a defunct movie theater located directly above DaVinci’s Eatery in the mid-1990s.

Epstein and other volunteers struck a deal for the space with the city of Lewiston, which owns the property. The museum got the space for an annual rental fee of $1. However, they have to be ready to vacate with just 30 days notice.

So the displays and machinery, some weighing more than a ton, have been mounted on wheels.

“This is a museum on wheels,” Epstein said. “It would be difficult to move, but we could do it if we had to.”

The volunteers have tried to bring together a museum’s expected features: antique photos, artifacts and written explanations. It also has a logical progression, from the history of the textile industry to a long room aimed at explaining the manufacture of textiles, from bailed cotton to fine bedspreads.

There’s a carding machine and spinets still bearing thread. In the loom at the room’s end, thread sits in the place it might if the machine had simply stopped abruptly and never restarted.

There are other items: articles from the laboratory where the company tested new dyes to a smoke shack where the workers took their breaks.

“I would hope visitors would get an appreciation of the importance (of textiles) to the community,” Epstein said.

The museum is to open during the Festival De Joie, Friday through Sunday, Aug. 1, 2 and 3. The hours will be 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, 2 to 7 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Regular hours will be scheduled later.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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