During the century-long heyday of Freeport shoemaking that ended in 1970, no less than 30 factories formed the backbone of the town’s work force.

Men and women labored in the big factories built by E.B. Mallett and H.E. Davis, and in smaller ones, giving what is now Freeport Village Station a much different look from what people see today.

The Freeport Historical Society will offer the public an in-depth perspective of the industry that once employed more than half of the town’s workers beginning on May 14, as it begins an eight-month exhibit entitled “Cobblers to Capitalists: Two Centuries of Freeport Shoemaking.” The opening reception will run from 5-7 p.m.

“The number of factories that were around for a town of that size was pretty remarkable,” said James Myall, executive director of the historical society.

Myall and Holly Hurd, collections manager at the Freeport Historical Society, have been working on “Cobblers to Capitalists” since last fall, when Myall developed the idea. Hurd and volunteers revamped and updated the meeting space in the historical society’s Harrington House Museum, at 45 Main St. Staffers have removed what would have been distracting wallpaper and painted the walls green, and turned the room into a double parlor. One room is devoted to the early history of shoemaking in Freeport, the other to the factories, machines and tools. Cobblers’ benches, shoe pegs and other staples of shoemaking will be on display. A research team of five to six people examined census and tax records to identify the names of people who worked in the industry. Hurd and the staff obtained many photographs and objects from the L.L. Bean archives and other sources, and interviewed former shoe workers, such as Dave Coffin. They did a “lunch with locals” this past February and March.

L.L. Bean founder Leon Leonwood Bean, of course, began making his famous Bean Hunting Shoe a century ago, and the company made moccasins at one time. L.L. Bean had shoemaking operations in other towns, as well, and moved out of Freeport to Brunswick in 1989.

“Shoemaking in Freeport hasn’t been researched in detail until now,” Hurd said. “The last shoes made in town were on Sept. 18, 2001, by Eastland Shoe.”

Like many manufacturers, the shoe industry in Maine collapsed because it couldn’t compete with the cost of labor overseas.

“The shoe shops closed because of competition overseas, where shoe manufacturing was less expensive due to cheaper labor,” Hurd said.

Hurd said that E.B. Mallett built a big factory in 1886 for A.W. Shaw, and then expanded.

“The production was so immense it put some of the smaller ones out of business,” she said. “But H.E. Davis survived. They were good entrepreneurs. They knew how to succeed in business. They were able to diversify.”

Freeport’s shoe factories took up space from Mechanic Street to West Street.

“It’s all focused on the area around the railroad,” Hurd said. “Some were local, like Davis, and then companies from Portland and Boston came in.”

Hurd noted that the shoe industry in Freeport actually stretched further back, to when itinerant shoemakers were plying their trade. Then, people began making shoe parts, she said, leading up to the construction of the factories.

Coffin, who worked in the shoe shops as a young man and whose mother, Dorothy, was a shoe worker for more than 40 years, will be on hand for the May 14 reception. He started working at Freeport Shoe when he was in high school in 1958, as a summer job. Freeport Shoe was one of three shoe shops in a factory that also included Taylor Shoe and FreeMoc, in what is now Freeport Village Station. For the exhibit, George Denney, who worked at Taylor Shoe before buying Cole-Hahn, has contributed a Taylor-made shoe.

“All of the shops were still full and running then,” Coffin said. “A lot of us kids were able to have summer jobs.”

Coffin said that Freeport Shoe made women’s high heels, Taylor manufactured high-quality men’s shoes and FreeMoc made the Bostonians brand shoes.

“That was a real quality men’s shoe,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I still own a pair of Bostonians. I’ve probably had them for 25 years.”

Following high school graduation, Coffin worked in the FreeMoc cutting room for 11?2 years. He cut parts out of the leather with a cutting machine, and there was a box of dyes.

“You had a certain amount of leather and you had to get a certain amount of shoes out of that leather,” he said. “There was a knack to it.”

Coffin met his future wife, Connie, when he was working at Freeport Shoe. They married in 1963, and are still together today. Coffin then left the shoe shops to begin his life’s work as a carpenter, following in the footsteps of his father, Gordon. But the Coffin family’s roots in shoemaking go decades back to when his mother began working at Freeport Shoe when she was a teenager. Dorothy Coffin knew a good thing, and stayed on until the factories closed in the early ’70s.

“She was the last stitching-room foreman at Freeport Shoe,” Coffin said. “Prior to that she was a fancy stitcher. There were a lot of women doing stitching, and there was a big room.”

Coffin said that Freeport’s shoe factories sustained people not only from Freeport, but also from many towns in the surrounding area, such as Lewiston-Auburn, Brunswick and Richmond.

“You didn’t have a big choice of jobs in those days,” he said, “and Freeport was fortunate to have the number of shoe shops that were available. You were coming out of the Depression. It was amazing how far people would drive. My mother had friends everywhere.”

Shoemakers stand outside Lenox Shoe, which was part of the Mallett factory, in Freeport Village.Photo courtesy of Freeport Historical SocietyHolly Hurd, collections manager at the Freeport Historical Society, points to a spot on an old town map that was the heart of the town’s shoemaking industry. Staff photo by Larry GrardMaking moccasins, Casco Bay Trading Post, Freeport, c.1970s.Photo courtesy of Freeport Historical Society?E.B. Mallett built a huge shoe factory in the center of  Freeport that was home to A.W. Shaw, Cumberland Shoe, Lenox Shoe and others. Photo courtesy of Freeport Historical Society