Criterion A: Industry
Criterion A: Community Planning & Development
Criterion C: Architecture
Period of Significance: 1893-1936
Local Level of Significance
The Rumford Falls Paper Company mill complex located in the town of Rumford, Oxford County, Maine, is significant under National Register Criterion A in the area of Industry, being the earliest manufacturing complex in the town which was created to utilize the waterpower at the falls. Paper manufacturing has been the primary industry throughout the history of the town. Also under Criterion A, the district has significance in the area of Community Planning and Development, as the first industrial component of Maine's first planned paper mill community. The complex is also significant under National Register Criterion C in the area of Architecture for the representation of two different industrial types of building, and as a Historic District composed of significant and distinguishable entities related in construction type, materials, and utilitarian design. The complex contains multiple brick and granite mill buildings built with 19th century slow-burning construction or early steel roof truss systems, embodying the distinctive characteristics of these types or methods of construction. The complex of thirteen surviving historic buildings and one modern building, two modern structures, and one ruin all enclosed on three sides by a historic granite block retaining wall comprise a visually cohesive grouping of industrial buildings primarily built between 1892 and 1899. Eleven of the fourteen buildings are contributing and two are not due to lack of integrity. The 1892-1895 retaining wall is also contributing. The fragmentary and collapsing remains of one historic building is counted as a non-contributing structure due to lack of integrity. The c. 1970 Office Building is physically separated from the other buildings and along with the two modern structures is clearly of another era and is also non-contributing as it was built after the period of significance.