When Bucksport’s paper mill shut down almost 11 years ago, it didn’t just take hundreds of jobs and more than 40 percent of the tax base with it; the closure also left a void in the life of the town and the workers that spent decades making paper.

Now, a new museum has opened in its former gatehouse to honor those workers and suppliers. The yearslong process bringing it to life has reunited some of them for a new purpose with a sense of community they missed.

“It brought us back together,” said Wesley “Chip” Stubbs, who worked in the mill for decades and was foreman of the restoration process.

Bucksport appears to be the only former paper mill town in Maine to create such a memorial to its former major employer, and the process has shown how much deeply the mill shaped the area and the

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