JAY – Directors of a paper industry museum, the first in Maine, launched a capital campaign Tuesday to raise more than $100,000. The group plans to buy a building to house a collection that captures the history of the paper industry along the Androscoggin River and the people who made it happen.
Directors met at the Otis Federal Credit Union, where the walls featured photos showing workers, giant rolls of paper, some of the first paper mills, log drives along the river and Hugh Chisholm, the man who was instrumental in building several mills.
Music played in the background and a computer projected more photos onto the wall, reminding people how the paper industry got started along the Androscoggin River and what it took to get it where it is today. One photo was accompanied by the words, “The bosses came and went but the people stayed.”
The displays were only a quarter of what has been collected for the Western Maine Paper & Heritage Museum, a grass-roots project that emerged in 2002.
A committee made up of current and retired paper mill workers, business and community leaders has been working toward an actual museum along the banks of the Androscoggin River.
“History needs a home,” Roland Poirier, museum board member and president of the credit union, said. “Our dream is to have a home for the museum.”
The group is looking for people to share their history and plans to make sure that the building, once the group gets one, doesn’t become a warehouse to store the collection but a place where visitors come to learn about the history of the paper industry and the people, Poirier said.
Ridlo Martini, manager of International Paper’s Androscoggin Mill, kicked off the campaign with a donation of $7,500 from the company to the museum’s board of directors Tuesday.
Martini said he was impressed with the efforts of the committee to preserve history for future generations.
He touched on IP’s announcement of its transformation plan, which calls for it to focus on its uncoated paper and packaging businesses, and either selling or creating new companies for its other businesses, including Androscoggin Mill, which makes coated paper.
“My feeling is Androscoggin Mill has a bright future. It has a lot of potential,” he said, “because it has a lot of experienced and dedicated people.”
IP has invested millions of dollars in the mill, he said, with a lot of it invested to improve its environmental performance.
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