GLOUCESTER, Mass. — Here’s the thing about the Crow’s Nest: It’s always been something of a public trust, especially since taking its star turn in the 2000 film “The Perfect Storm.”

There is no wider open-door policy in this fishing town, and owners Mary Anne Shatford and Gregg Sousa have banked significant goodwill. They take care of their clientele. They host free meals on the holidays. They open their doors when the fishing community loses one of its own.

Visitors come from across the vast reaches of the country to check out the inspiration for the beloved bar of enduring celluloid fame. They survey walls of photos, rub elbows with the regulars, listen to the stories, perhaps blow the foam off a couple.

And they look through a collection of rare photos that provide a visual connection for the bar’s unique narrative. Known simply as “the album,” it resides below the bar and is available to all. Well, it used to be.

Sometime around 3:45 p.m. last Sunday, according to Shatford, someone walked off with the album. Only after three days of outrage — there really is no other word — expressed in person and across social media, was it returned.

At about 10 a.m. Wednesday, the Nest’s regular mail carrier, Jen Quinn, brought a box into the bar. It was addressed to the Crow’s Nest at 334 Main St. The return address was a street address in “Georgia, GA.”

Inside Sousa found the album, seemingly unharmed from its short flight from the Nest, and a typed, unsigned note: “I just wanted to return this. It was taken by a drunk friend, and I do not feel that was right. SORRY.”

Through its images and clippings, the collection inside the album chronicles the Nest’s cinematic debut as the drinking establishment of choice among fishermen in “The Perfect Storm,” and fans of the film have flocked to the Nest to see it.

There are images of the film’s stars, including George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Diane Lane, in candid moments with owners, family members and bar patrons.

Perhaps more important to the extended Crow’s Nest family, the collection is an archive of longtime patrons and regulars, many of whom have passed on.

“People from all over the world have looked at that album,” said Shatford.

She believes the return address affixed by the anonymous sender was a false flag. She remembered waiting on four out-of-towners at the end of the bar Sunday who ultimately emerged as the chief suspects of the chicanery.

One couple, according to Shatford, said they were from Georgia. The others identified themselves as a man from Florida and a woman from Boston. They all viewed the album.

That rung a bell again Wednesday when Shatford saw the U.S. Postal Service label that listed the zip code 02145 — Somerville and Medford, Massachusetts — as the point of sending origin for the box.

“The album never got to Georgia,” she said.

Shatford spent three days sleuthing for the album. Once it was discovered missing, she went on social media to express her dismay and disappointment. She canvassed video surveillance footage. That produced a still shot of the likely culprit walking down a Main Street sidewalk holding a red book album in his left hand.

Other Gloucester restaurants kept a collective eye out. Bar patrons and other fans of the Nest pitched in. At least three people pledged money for a reward.

Shatford was interviewed on television.

“I really didn’t have any hope for getting it back,” she said Wednesday. “We’re so happy. We sort of felt violated before and now everything is fine again.”