NORWAY — The former C.B. Cummings & Sons Co. mill site will be dedicated by its current owners, Western Maine Healthcare Corp., in the near future, hospital officials say.

Details of the ceremony were not available, said Kate Wight, community relations coordinator, but they are in the works.

A bronze plaque was recently erected on a granite post on the Pikes Hill Road end of the property. It designates the former site of the C.B. Cummings & Sons Co., which operated from 1860 to 2003 and employed several generations of local people.

The plaque describes how the company was the “mainstay” of the local business community and manufactured items such as toys, furniture components and finished furniture. At one time, the company was the world’s largest producer of hardwood dowels.

Western Maine Healthcare Corp., the parent company of Stephens Memorial Hospital, bought the former Cummings Mill property two years ago. The purchase was from the Libra Foundation for an undisclosed amount. The foundation had concluded that the economic environment would not support the type of project envisioned when the property was bought by the Growth Council of Oxford Hills for $100,000 shortly after the mill closed for good about six years ago.

The Growth Council, the town and Norway Downtown Revitalization came up with a plan to redevelop the site for private development, but in 2004 the state rejected a plan by the town to secure a $400,000 grant to help redevelop the vacant mill. The Libra Foundation, a group of investors who were attempting to put upscale housing on the property, bought it in 2005 for about $300,000.

No specific plan for the property has been made public, but officials said two years ago that the land could be a possible means to address the shortage of office space and parking.

The agreement had called for Western Maine Healthcare to plant grass seed and create a park for use by townspeople until it was determined how the property would be used by the company. A fence has been erected around the property.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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