Historic mills in Maine offer great destinations for shopping, food and culture.
The cavernous brick mills where tens of thousands of Maine people made their living from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s now hum with a different kind of activity and purpose.
Nearly all of the textile, shoe and masonry manufacturing operations that helped cities and towns like Biddeford, Lewiston, Brunswick and Camden grow during America’s industrial revolution have closed. Today, mills throughout the state are filled with restaurants, gourmet markets, galleries, artist studios, specialty food makers, antiques dealers and small businesses making everything from guitars to porch swings and hooked rugs.
The buildings also host traveling film festivals, art exhibitions and live entertainment. Here’s a glimpse at what’s happening inside historic mills in Maine.
Fort Andross, Brunswick
This mill complex along the Androscoggin River is named after the trading post that was built on the same site in 1688. Fort Andross is now a modern day business center with a 15,000 square foot antiques showroom, indoor flea market, restaurants, and artists studios that are open to the public during monthly second Friday Artwalks May through December.
A rotating exhibit of artwork is displayed in the Coleman-Burke Gallery operated by the Bowdoin College Art Department, and there’s more art, independent films and great river views to been seen at Frontier Café, Cinema and Gallery (www.explorefrontier.com).
Fort Andross is located at 14 Maine Street in Brunswick and is a short walk from the Bowdoin Mill on the other side of the river in Topsham. The Sea Dog Brewing Co. (www.seadogbrewing.com) operates a restaurant/microbrewery on the ground floor of the Bowdoin Mill.
The former home of Knox Woolen Company, which specialized in mechanical felts for papermaking machines, is a growing retail and food destination in downtown Camden. Knox Mill Center is a 193,000 square foot complex on three stories, just two blocks from Main Street and picturesque Camden harbor.
Businesses inside the mill include a gourmet food and wine market, photography gallery, book shop, restaurant with live music, a hand-hooked wool rug and pillow maker, and a clothing and home furnishings store. Knox Mill Center is located at 48 Washington Street in Camden. Call 207-236-3691 or visit www.theknoxmill.com for more information.
Bates Mill Complex, Lewiston
Union soldiers in the Civil War stayed warm and dry with blankets and tent cloth made at Lewiston’s Bates Mill. The mill’s history of textile and shoe manufacturing is shared at Museum L-A (www.museumla.org), a new attraction that preserves the industrial and cultural heritage of Lewiston and its twin city of Auburn.
Maine Heritage Weavers continues to make traditionally loomed bedding, and sells bedspreads, blankets and coverlets at the Bates Mill Store (www.batesmillstore.com). Other products manufactured at the mill include high end cabinets and furniture by Mcintosh & Tuttle Cabinetmakers and world renowned acoustic guitars made by Pantheon Guitars.
The fifth solo-biennial interactive exhibit by Maine artist Amy Stacey Curtis (www.amystaceycurtis.com) is being shown now through October 24 at Millstone Place along the Mousam River in Sanford. LIGHT is comprised of nine large-in-scope installations spread throughout 26,000 square feet of the mill.
Like each of Curtis’ previous biennial shows at Maine mills, some exhibits in LIGHT will require the participants physical touch or effect while others function through active purposeful perception. Each installation has instructions that ask the audience to manipulate, maintain, enter, detect, distinguish or recognize light, experiencing it in new ways.
Curtis will attend the exhibit at all hours Monday through Friday noon to 5:00 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free and donations will be accepted. Small children will need adult supervision. Millstone Place is located at 72 Emery Street in downtown Sanford.
North Dam Mill (www.northdammill.com) is part of the historic Pepperell Company mill complex along the Saco River in Biddeford. Textile and home goods manufacturers have been replaced by several boutique shops, artist studios, furniture makers, a truffle exporter, a gourmet cookie and tart baker, and a coffee house.
The mill is at 2 Main Street in downtown Biddeford, and just up the river from southern Maine’s newest microbrewery at Saco Mill House in Saco. Run of the Mill Public House and Brewery is owned by the same proprietors of Central Maine’s popular Liberal Cup Public House & Brewery in Hallowell. The brewery and restaurant is located on Saco Island.
To learn more about unique destinations in Maine go to www.visitmaine.com.