WILLOW CREEK — The Willow Creek Community Hall, built in 1924 as a Grange hall and the site of countless town meetings, wedding receptions, and potluck suppers, reopened this week after a $40,000 renovation funded by a federal Community Development Block Grant.
The project includes a new commercial-grade kitchen, accessible bathrooms, upgraded heating and electrical systems, and fresh paint throughout the main hall. The work was performed by a crew of eight local laborers, five of whom were unemployed mill workers.
“This building has held this town together for nearly sixty years,” said First Selectman Arthur Whitcomb at the ribbon-cutting. “It deserved better than the patch-and-pray approach we’ve been taking. Now it has a foundation it can stand on for another sixty.”
The grant, administered by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, was one of twenty awarded statewide in 1982. Willow Creek’s application emphasized using the renovated hall to attract community events and small-scale tourism.
“We made the case that a modern, accessible community hall is an economic development asset,” Whitcomb said. “If we want to attract visitors for leaf-peeping or snowmobiling, we need a place that can host them.”
Marie Dumont, who has organized the annual town meeting potluck for twenty-three years, was particularly pleased with the new kitchen. “I have made 600 ham-and-bean suppers in a kitchen with one working burner,” she said. “This new kitchen is a dream.”
The renovation preserved several historic features, including the original wooden floor and the proscenium arch of the stage. Jed Thorne, who curated a history display for the reopening, noted the building has been in continuous use since 1924. “A fresh coat of paint and a working kitchen are the least we owe it,” he said.