ELLSWORTH – Blue Hill may be turning gray.

“We’ve become kind of a retirement community,” says Selectman Gordon Emerson, who suspects the latest census numbers for his town would have been higher if the 2000 count had been after June 1 instead of early spring.

The numbers show Blue Hill with 2,390 residents, making it the fourth-largest town in Hancock County.

Many Blue Hill retirees spend a part of their year in warmer climates and weren’t around when the 2000 census counted people, Emerson said. Yet the town grew by 449 in the 1990s.

Emerson and others believe the presence of Parker Ridge, a retirement village, has not only added to the number of older residents in town, but may also be having a greater, indirect impact.

Other retirees may be moving into town, anticipating a move to Parker Ridge, says Tom Martin, executive director of the Hancock County Planning Commission.

“People who retire to an area are often attracted to what’s available there,” Martin said. “There may be people who are looking down the road to when they might need that service. It may serve as a sort of magnet there.”

Whatever the magnet, Hancock County as a whole grew at a rate a little better than 10 percent in the 1990s.

It was enough to make the county the third-fastest in growth among Maine’s 16 counties.

But it is not growing in all age categories.

“One of the consequences of population growth is usually an increase in school enrollments,” Martin said. “That has not been the case in Hancock County as a whole. We’re not having a large influx of school-age children into the county. We’re not getting families.”

The number of Hancock County residents under 18 grew by just 2 percent overall, Martin pointed out – a small increase.

In some communities, the percentage of those under 18 actually decreased, as it did statewide. That, he said, is an indication that many of those moving into the county are older adults.

That’s the case in Blue Hill, according to Emerson.

In Ellsworth, the county seat, the furor in recent years has centered on plans to bring big box stores into the county’s only city. Yet Ellsworth has continued slow, steady growth on the residential side during the past decade.

That is reflected in the 2000 census figures, showing that the city’s population grew by about 8 percent in the 1990s, pushing the population to 6,456.

That rate was almost half what it was in the 1980s, when it reached about 15 percent. But it does not signify a downward trend, says John Dunn, the city’s code enforcement officer.

“Ellsworth has always had slow growth,” Dunn said. “We’ve never had the big peaks and valleys that you see elsewhere, even during late ’80s. You didn’t see any overbuilding. You look around the city and you’ll see very few empty buildings. I still see us maintaining our growth.”

But while the county’s three largest communities – Ellsworth, Bucksport and Bar Harbor – all showed continued growth during that time, the fastest growth took place in outlying communities.

That reflects an overall population shift out of the cities and into the rural areas of the state, a shift that saw the state’s major cities, including Bangor, Brewer, Lewiston, Augusta and Portland, post population losses.

“People are moving out of the built-up communities into the outlying areas,” said Martin, of the Hancock County Planning Commission. “People are wanting a more rural lifestyle. Even in Ellsworth, most of the subdivisions that have been developed have been in the outlying areas. There’s now a statewide effort by the State Planning Office to try to make those areas known as service centers more attractive again.”

Often people who work at service jobs in those larger communities can’t afford the high real estate prices or the high taxes in those areas, Martin said.

That’s part of the reason that towns like Mariaville and Otis posted increases of 53 percent, the highest in Hancock County. They’re rural, land is less expensive and they are located within easy driving distance of Ellsworth.

Other towns located close to major service center areas showed population increases that rivaled and in some cases surpassed the numbers in the larger communities.

Bar Harbor, for example, grew by about 8.49 percent, an increase of 377 people. The town of Hancock increased its population by 390 people (22 percent); Blue Hill, 449 (23 percent); Surry, 357 (36 percent); Trenton 310 (29 percent) and Orland by 329 (18 percent).

“People are simply looking for a community that is fairly spacious, where there’s plenty of room and they don’t have to live on a postage stamp lot,” said Orland Selectman Wayne Ames. “There’s still a value to being in a small family-oriented community that is close to opportunities in the surrounding areas.”

While the job market in the western part of the county has remained stable, Ames said, there’s more to the area than jobs to attract people. People moving into areas such as Orland are willing to drive a longer distance to work in order to have the rural experience the town offers, he said.

“You sit out on Route 1 and watch. The amount of traffic between Ellsworth and Bucksport is tremendous,” Ames said. “And I don’t think they’re going a lot farther than Ellsworth.”

The same is true on the other main roads out of the area. Commuter traffic is heavy on Route 15 to Bangor and on Route 1 toward Belfast where MBNA has attracted a number of county workers.

While most towns in the county saw some increase in population there were exceptions to that trend.

Population on some of the islands decreased, with Cranberry Isles losing 61 residents and Frenchboro losing six, despite efforts to attract new families to the island. Stonington lost 100 residents or 8 percent of its population while neighboring Deer Isle grew by 3 percent.

In the eastern part of the county, Gouldsboro’s population decreased by 45 residents and Winter Harbor lost 169 residents. That drop in population was likely recent and a result of the plans by the U.S. Navy to abandon the base and other facilities in those two communities.

“I don’t know how vacant the [base] housing was when they did the census, but there’s no question that that’s had an effect on us,” said Roger Barto, the town manager in Winter Harbor.

Barto estimated that by the time the Navy leaves the base next year, the town’s population will be down to about 450. According to census figures, the population now stands at about 988.