When a town loses its industry

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, March 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: what happens when a mill town loses its mill. Earlier this month, a packaging company announced that it would be shutting down its pulp and paper mill in Canton, North Carolina.

REICHARD: The mill’s been a fixture of Canton for more than a century. Now, the people who live there are going to have to learn how to build a future without it. WORLD Correspondent Caleb Bailey has the story.

JOSH EVANS: The paper mill, in my opinion, is the identity of Canton, North Carolina.

CALEB BAILEY, REPORTER: Josh Evans is the pastor of Crabtree Baptist Church, 12 miles northwest of Canton, North Carolina. The town is nestled into the Appalachian Mountains, just off of highway 40. Even from five miles out, you can see smoke billowing up from behind green mountains. Located at the entrance to Canton, the papermill towers over the small mountain town.

SOUND: WHISTLE

Its low horn—what locals call the whistle—sounds three times a day. 7 am. Noon. And 3pm. Why those times? That’s debated, but the town expects those whistles, every day.

EVANS: It brands everything the football team, you know, wears, you know, mill town on their jerseys and on their helmets.

Most businesses in town capitalize on this. Papertown Coffee. Papertown Billiards. Milltown Furniture.

At 32 years old, Evans has spent most of his life in Haywood County. His family moved to Canton to work at the mill when it opened in 1908.

In the century or so since its opening, the mill has seen a lot.

Balsam Range, a bluegrass group from Haywood County, wrote a song about Canton’s landmark. It’s called “Papertown.”

MUSIC: [PAPERTOWN BY HAYWOOD COUNTY]

Even as the town and nation grew and changed, the mill’s distinct smell never did. Sharp and foul, similar to sulfur.

EVANS: People in Canton say, that's the smell of money.

The mill employs about a quarter of Canton’s population of 4500. That means when the mill closes in June, a quarter of the town will be out of a job.

Zeb Smathers took over as town mayor in 2017.

ZEB SMATHERS: This is family. And we've suffered a death in the family.

At the heart of Papertown is an old one-story brick building: Smathers and Smathers Attorneys at Law. Zeb Smathers and his dad, Patrick, run the firm.

Patrick served as mayor from 1999 to 2011. And in 2017, Zeb followed in his dad’s footsteps.

Since his election, Zeb Smathers has braved COVID, a city-wide flood, and now the shutdown of its largest industry.

SMATHERS: I think that could have been handled better.

Most mill workers found out from a Facebook post or news release. Not from the company that owns the mill, Evergreen Packaging.

SMATHERS: and out of the gate that really did not sit well with people when you learned about your job closing on social media. Not the best way to do it.

Smathers now has to ask, what’s next?

SMATHERS: The most important thing we're doing right now is that we're huddling around these families giving them love and giving support.

In the weeks following the announcement, job fairs popped up around Canton featuring a whole range of industries, from the police force to other manufacturing plants. Smathers says Canton won’t leave the millworkers in the dust.

SMATHERS: At the very least, I can stand with them, and fight for them, and demand their respect and build a future that is worthy of them.

Jason Edwards works as the mill shipping inventory coordinator. He’s been at the paper mill for four years.

EDWARDS: My wife called me and asked me if I still had a job. I said what do you mean do I still have a job? She said, people have already been calling me, they said the plant’s shutting down.

Edwards and his wife Roberta have been married for seven years. They have four kids.

EDWARDS: the next thing run through my mind, I was like, Man, I really love this job. It's given me an opportunity to do stuff with my family that I would never normally get to do like, I can pick up my little boy every day now I'm never going to find another job like this.

Edwards says his department is typically lighthearted, lots of jokes and laughing. But the past month has looked and sounded a lot different.

EDWARDS: There were people were like, I'm gonna lose my house, I'm gonna lose my car. Because people make a good amount of money at the mill, but they also work lots of hours.

Canton’s paper mill doesn’t only pay the bills of its workers. A large portion of the restaurant clientele are workers on their daily break.

Nathan and Michaela Lowe opened Southern Porch 7 years ago. It’s right across the street from Smather’s law office.

MICHAELA LOWE: I think the whistle for sure is gonna be missed.

The sight, smell, and sound of the mill mean success for other businesses too.

LOWE: I mean, the change is unsettling for us, too. I think for a lot of people in this town that aren't just the mill workers, every business who we're friends with, or who we partner with, they're all being impacted in some way. Because, you know, mill workers are part of all of our everyday lives.

The future of the mill is uncertain. But Pastor Josh Evans says that the closing of such a monument might raise deeper questions beyond getting food on the table.

EVANS: thought a lot about the steam rising from the paper mill the paper mill is pretty much just like that it is the steam that rises and, and dissipates very quickly. I mean, it's not eternal, it's not going to be there forever. And other things are going to pass away. What does last? What is eternal? What is not fading away?

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Caleb Bailey in Canton, North Carolina.

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