LEWISTON — Among the pipes and pillars of their Bates Mill home, the people of Museum L-A gathered Thursday to celebrate both past and future.

It was the same space where people of earlier generations toiled for hours, contributing to the community in ways we celebrate today.

“Is this a great space to have a dinner, or what?” gushed Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums.

Bell, kind of a rock star in the museum world, was on hand to help the museum celebrate a year of smashing success.

And what a year it was.

Membership doubled. The number of donors climbed to 700. The museum now puts on three exhibits and four special events each year and there are new partnerships with Bates College and the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

“It was a year with a lot going on,” said Rachel Desgrosseilliers, the museum’s executive director.

She ought to know. Desgrosseilliers has been the driving force behind a lot of the museum’s almost freakish growth. Museum L-A was her vision when most people thought it couldn’t be done. It was also her idea to get a museum big shot like Bell to come Lewiston for Thursday’s event.

“When Rachel makes up her mind that something is going to happen,” Bell said, “then it’s going to happen, and here I am. There is no museum anywhere, of any type or any size, that has a better leader.”

At its essence, the event was about awarding people who made special contributions to the community. But it was also about reflecting on the museum’s humble past while looking to the future — a future that includes a move into the former Camden Yarns mill.

Desgrosseilliers had the history covered. With the help of a slide show, she depicted what their section of the Bates Mill used to look like, before it was cleaned up, remodeled and turned into the place they’ve called home. The show ended with a faraway view of Camden Yarns with the message: Imagine the Possibilities.

Not that anyone has to look far down the road to see what Museum L-A is about.

“We are educating children and their families,” Desgrosseilliers said. “We are connecting generations, and we see it every day. We are recording history.”

The museum sometimes has a waiting list of children who want to come in and explore the past. There are bus tours now, music shows and dances that celebrate the past. The popularity of the museum has soared, Desgrosseilliers said, because the people it showcases are so fascinating to study.

“They had a spirit of ‘we can do it’ and that is how they built this community,” she said. There was among them “a stubborn streak that didn’t give up, a great spirit of creativity and innovation.”

The museum has been visited by people from 41 states and 10 countries, emphasizing that fascination with our history is not just a local phenomenon.

“We bring people from all over to learn who we are,” Desgrosseilliers said, “and to be amazed by it.”

Behind every great success is a great person or group and several were honored Thursday night.

Inspiration and heritage awards

The 2012 Inspiration and Innovation Award was presented to the family of the late Adrien Jalbert, a Lewiston native who, with only a grade-school education, went on to invent and patent machinery for the shoe industry that is still in use today.

The Heritage Award honored Lufthansa Technix North America for its Lockheed “Super Star” reconstruction project under way at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.

For their restoration of historic houses along Main Street in Auburn, the Revitalization Award was presented to David Rogers and Peter Rubins.

The museum also recognized Rinck Advertising of Auburn with a Business Support Award. The agency has been helping businesses and nonprofits to find creative answers to their marketing, advertising and promotional needs.

Bell, president of the American Association of Museums since 2007, delivered a keynote address that was laced with humor but one that was also dire. The future of museums around the country is in question, he said, thanks to a number of factors that include a struggling economy and proposed tax laws that could hurt contributions.

“I don’t want to be Chicken Little,” he said, “but we could be facing a perfect storm of museum financing next year.”

So, what will it take to keep museums thriving? Awareness. Dedication. The kind of ambition that mirrors that of the people who got the Twin Cities off the ground all those years ago.

The good news for Museum L-A is that it has someone with all of those attributes, and some to spare.

“I’ve been told many times that I’m crazy, that it would never work,” Desgrosseilliers said. “That never stopped me. I’m asking that you don’t let it stop you, either.

And then one final rallying cry and the dire part of the night was over.

“They say, ‘Never’; we say, ‘Watch,'” Desgrosseilliers said, “because we have the spirit of our ancestors.”