SANFORD — It is a city now, but back in the 1950s, Sanford was “the town that refused to die.”

The story is a familiar one. In 1953, Burlington Mills purchased the Goodall textile mills that had sustained so many for so long. They moved production to North Carolina in 1954 and seemingly overnight,  3,600 people — whose toil at the mills supported so many more — became instantly unemployed.

These days when those sorts of things happen, the state labor department mobilizes their rapid response program, to help.

In the 1950s, there was no such program.

“There was no mechanism to deal with the closure of the mills,” said Chamber of Commerce President Richard Stanley.

And so 44 local businessmen got together  and worked many hours to get the message out whereever and however they could — Sanford had willing workers and 2 million square feet of manufacturing space.

The newly formed Chamber of Commerce took their pitch on the road, to Boston, New York and beyond, and it worked. By 1957, according to H. Allen Mapes, 16 businesses had come to Sanford, bringing with them 2,500 jobs.

Those 44 folks were honored Thursday afternoon, when a monument to that Herculean effort was unveiled, appropriately, at the overlook near the waterfall, on the edge of the mill district.

The plan to commemorate that big push to save the town more than 60 years ago is an idea that Mapes and his wife Polly had been thinking about for a while. They put some money together and decided to commission a monument to commemorate the original 44 members. The monument lists all of their names, and gives an explanation of their mission.

Most of the folks who took part in that early Chamber of Commerce have passed on — Mapes and Andre G. Chabot remain. Mapes got in touch with descendants of the 44  original members and invited them to attend the unveiling; many did.

Among those attending was Marston Lovell of Saco, whose father was Ralph Lovell, a longtime Sanford pharmacist was one of the original Chamber of Commerce  members.

One of the many ways the Chamber of Commerce sought out new industry was Ralph Lovell’s matchbox pitch, said Mapes.

Lovell, a lad at the time, said the matches were distributed to bars and other venues in Boston and New York as smoking was popular in the 1950s. On the cover, the Chamber of Commerce offered a $500 reward for information leading to the relocation of a business to Sanford.

“I remember the boxes of matches being around the house,” said Lovell.

He remembers being a youngster back in 1953 when the Sanford-Springvale Chamber of Commerce was just forming. Lovell recalled folks were urged to buy Burlington Mills stock and then write to the corporation as a shareholder, urging them to stay in Sanford — but that tactic was unsuccessful and the mills moved south the following year. The Chamber of Commerce sprang into action.

On Thursday, before the unveiling, Mapes talked about some of what had transpired.

“Thirteen million dollars in payroll went out the window,” when the mills closed, he said. “I was here during those days, and people suffered.”

He recalled some of the advertising campaigns — and Life magazine picking up the story. He recalled the NBC Armstrong Circle Theater movie about Sanford starring Darren McGavin called “The Town that Refused to Die.”

Sometime this decade, someone told Mapes it was time the phrase “the town that refused to die,” was put to rest.

He disagreed with that assessment when he first heard it, and he disagrees with it now, he said  on Thursday.

Even as he talked about the past, he also spoke to the future. Mapes, 89, spoke of York Pines, the name currently in use by a group of folks, including him, that is attempting to bring a large-scale themed tourist attraction to about 100 acres in south Sanford.

“It would make Sanford into a big time city,” Mapes said.

The sun shone for the afternoon event, and the waterfall sparkled. Nearby the ever-present mills still stand — though one is heavily fire damaged — as Sanford continues to reinvent itself.

Mayor Tom Cote said he thought about what transpired when the mills closed as he prepared his remarks.

“It came down to a brave and motivated group of individuals who put their necks on the line,” to save the community, Cote said. “The spirit of that group of folks is alive today.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.