WILLOW CREEK — Three months after the Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company closed its doors, unemployment in the town has reached 28 percent — the highest level recorded in Aroostook County since the Depression.
Of the 87 workers idled by the closure, only 22 have found new employment. Most have taken jobs outside Willow Creek — at the paper mill in Millinocket, at the shoe factories in Lewiston, or in the service industries of Bangor. Eighteen families have already moved away.
“Every week there’s another moving truck on Main Street,” said Maeve O’Donnell of the General Store. “I’ve lost fifteen regular customers since March. Fifteen. That’s a lot for a small store.”
The town has applied for Economic Development Administration assistance, a federal program designed to help communities affected by major industrial closures. The application, prepared by the Board of Selectmen, requests funding for job retraining programs and infrastructure improvements aimed at attracting new businesses.
“The federal government has programs for this kind of situation,” said Arthur Pendelton’s father, Everett, who has been consulting with the selectmen on the application. “But the question is whether they’ll fund a town this small. We’re competing with cities that have lost auto plants and steel mills.”
The ripple effects extend beyond the mill workers themselves. Businesses that depended on mill workers’ wages are struggling. The diner on Main Street has reduced its hours. The Farr family dairy has lost 12 delivery customers. Even the Congregational Church has seen a decline in donations.
“There is no sugar-coating this,” the Gazette editorialized. “Willow Creek is bleeding. The mill was not just an employer — it was the reason this town existed. Without it, we are a village on a river with no purpose but to watch the water flow by.”
The town is now pinning its hopes on two possibilities: attracting a new industry to occupy the mill site, or developing a tourism economy based on Homan’s Pond, the Mattawamkeag River, and the region’s hunting and fishing resources. Neither prospect seems immediate.