WILLOW CREEK — Construction is fully underway on the Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company’s main building on River Road, with sixty men employed. The mill will house a steam-powered planer, two drying kilns, and a sawing shed capable of processing ten thousand board feet per day.
The main building, measuring 120 by 60 feet, will dominate the riverbank at the foot of the mill race. The foundation is being laid with granite salvaged from the old Thorne & Sons Shipworks sawpit, a practical reuse that has drawn mixed reactions.
“I watched them pull the stones out of the sawpit wall,” said Ezra Thorne II. “Those stones were laid by my grandfather’s hands. Now they will support the foundation of the mill that replaced him.”
The rail connection is the project’s most significant feature. A spur line, three-quarters of a mile long, is being laid from the Bangor & Aroostook main line to the mill’s loading dock. The spur, built by railroad graders brought up from Bangor, will allow finished flooring to be loaded directly onto freight cars.
“The railroad is the mill’s lifeline,” said Asa Pendleton. “Without the Bangor & Aroostook, we could not ship our product economically. The river carried sloops in Mr. Thorne’s day. The railroad carries freight cars in ours.”
The machinery is expected to arrive by rail in September. The mill is projected to open in the spring of 1903.