NORWAY – A rusted red smokestack atop the old C.B. Cummings dowel mill will make way for progress today as the mill property is cleaned up to be redeveloped.

By late afternoon, the slim column that once spewed smoke into the sky over Main Street should be gone.

“It was a symbol of the mill itself and it’s hard to let it go. Especially for the people who worked there.” Marcy Boughter of the Western Maine Development Corp., project manager for the redevelopment, said Tuesday.

But, Boughter said, the smokestack serves no purpose, is a safety hazard and may be unattractive to potential developers. Therefore, Western Maine Development, which owns the property, is taking it down.

Boughter is concerned because a number of guy wires used to stabilize the smokestack will be cut as the mill buildings they are attached to are razed. In addition, she said, no one has even been able to confirm when the smokestack was built or whether it’s safe.

There has been no structural analysis of the smokestack, she said.

With or without such an analysis, loss of the smokestack will be unsettling for some. It is a symbol of an industrial era that has come and gone.

Norway Selectman George Tibbetts Jr., who worked at the mill for about 48 years, sees no reason for the structure to go.

“You talk about historical Main Street, and that goes right along with it,” he said Monday.

Tibbetts said the smokestack has played many roles in the community. Above and beyond the mill uses, the structure once emitted the smoke of incinerated roadkill and also marijuana.

The burning of roadkill spared the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department the expense of disposing with animal carcasses, Tibbetts said, while the marijuana was from drug seizures by area police.

There were no complaints about the smells, Tibbetts said. The smokestack “was so high you didn’t get any smell.”

Rob Noll lives on Main Street, across the Penneseewassee Stream from the mill. He once complained of the soot and ash from the smokestack, but today even he is disappointed to see the structure go.

“I think it’s very unique and special, and we liked the duct work,” Noll said. He had visions of flags and a banner being hung from the smokestack to advertise the renovated property in the future.

“I think it’s very shortsighted of the Growth Council (of Oxford Hills) to take it down,” he said, referring to an organization affiliated with Western Maine Development. The growth council is helping to write grant applications and develop interest in the property, Boughter said.

She also said the next step for the mill property will be to attract developers, then create a specific site plan. With that in place, Western Maine Development and the growth council will apply for a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant to help with further renovations to the property.

Attempts to secure an identical grant failed last year, but Boughter feels that the ongoing site improvements and better-developed plans for the future may help.

Boughter said there is no budget for the mill project because there are no concrete development plans at this time. She did not have information available on the amount of money spent on improving the mill to date.

Norway encouraged Western Maine Development to buy the mill site and redevelop it after it was closed by the Cummings family in the fall of 2002. The Norway Board of Selectmen has agreed to contribute $65,000 in existing grant money toward the project.