WILLOW CREEK — The Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company opened for business this week with a ribbon-cutting attended by two hundred townspeople. The mill, employing eighty-five men, processes white oak and hard maple into finished flooring for New England markets.

The Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company's grand opening, as the first planer begins cutting the flooring that would build a town.
The Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company's grand opening, as the first planer begins cutting the flooring that would build a town.

The opening ceremony was held at the mill’s main gate, where a banner reading “THE PLANER RUNS” hung over the entrance. Asa Pendleton cut the ribbon with tin snips borrowed from the mill’s tool room.

“The sound of the planer is the sound of a town reborn,” Harold Finch writes in a special twelve-page Gazette edition. “Ten years ago, this town was mourning Thorne & Sons Shipworks and wondering what would come next. Today we have our answer.”

The mill’s first production run, one thousand board feet of select-grade white oak flooring, was loaded onto a Bangor & Aroostook freight car within hours. The railroad spur connecting the mill to the main line was tested under load for the first time and performed without incident.

Ezra Thorne II, who opposed the mill at every stage, was notably absent. When reached at his home, he declined to comment. But a neighbour reported seeing him walking along the bank of the old shipyard that morning, looking at the water covering the launching slip.

The Gazette wishes the mill every success. The iron horse that carried away the last Thorne vessel has brought a new industry to Willow Creek.

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