RUMFORD – A story about the people and changes in the town of Rumford is the featured article in the October issue of Down East magazine.
Titled “Rumford for Real: Everything You Know About It Is Wrong,” is written by Mexico native and novelist Monica Wood of Portland.
“It’s a very personal story,” said Down East editor-in-chief Paul Doiron. He said Wood’s grandfather, father and brother have all worked at the local paper mill.
The magazine will hit newsstands and subscribers’ mailboxes next week.
He said the magazine chose a story about Rumford for a variety of reasons, including the evolving emphasis by the magazine to publish more stories from inland Maine.
“We’re constantly looking around for where is a story in the making,” he said.
Doiron said he was convinced, when Wood pitched the story, that Rumford had been overwhelmingly depicted by the media as negative, and that many other aspects of the community were overlooked.
“There’s an undercurrent that Rumford is a town that can reinvent itself,” he said, citing the new art gallery, younger people moving in, the new town manager and the historic architecture.
He said each town responds in different ways to the lessening economic impact of a paper mill. He said many towns can’t imagine themselves without a mill.
“The interesting thing about Rumford is you see people who are looking around the town at quality of life (matters) like the ski area and more diversity,” he said.
He also believes that the town has gotten such bad press that he thought there was another side to the story.
“There’s something distinctive about Rumford,” he said, adding that he had visited the town a number of years ago.
The 2,500-word, six-page story includes photographs of some of the town’s historic architecture, and its mill, by contributing photographer Dean Abramson
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