“They were squeezing the life out of it before,” he said.

The ambitious two-year goal declared at the grand opening — to convert the mill from hardwood to softwood, and then scale up pulp production from the mill’s former yield of 150,000 tons a year to 270,000 — is still far off.

The mill is still ramping up, producing about 200 tons a day, Mr. Kerschner said. He said he hoped to bring production up to the pre-shutdown level early this year.

“We’re right on the verge now,” he said. “Every day you can feel we’re right on the edge of what needs to occur.”

Old Town’s small commercial strip was desolate during the holidays, its single popular restaurant gutted by a fire. Many in town were watching the mill, to see if the new owners would be scared off, like the ones who came before.

Dan Smart, 63, who logged 39 years at the mill and then returned for a few months to work security, said that, on the contrary, the new owners seemed to have limitless patience. They assigned double crews, month after month, as technicians worked to bring the boilers back into operation.

“In the past, if something wasn’t running in a hurry, someone was panicking,” he said. “That money they have is a bottomless pit.”

He concluded, eventually, that the panic is not coming. “That threat seems to be gone with this outfit,” he said. “They’re in it for the long haul.”