This post opens our Big Company, Small Town series, featuring large companies and the small towns in which they are headquartered. Watch for more Big Company, Small Town posts coming soon.
All across this great country of ours, small cities, towns, and villages have been built in the shadows of major companies that supply work for their local populations. It can be a wonderful situation that cultivates a special kind of community and a deep-seated local pride. However, it can also be a recipe for civic disaster, if the major supplier of a wage base in a locality goes out of business or leaves town. Such was the near disastrous fate of Park Falls, Wisconsin, not so long ago.
The city of Park Falls, which is Wisconsin's most geographically isolated city, was built around its paper mill. At its height, the mill helped to bring the population of the city to nearly 4,000 inhabitants. However, in 2006 the paper mill, which was operating at reduced capacity under ownership from out of state, was shut down almost without any prior notice. The result was immediate and deeply wrenching turmoil. Not only had the paper mill workers lost an excellent source of income, but the collateral damage was jarringly significant also. Loggers had no local market for their pulp wood. Dozens of family-feeding log trucks were idled. Private contractors who did various types of work for the mill were left with thousands of dollars worth of unpaid invoices. Local vendors, retailers, and support businesses almost immediately went slack.
Luckily, our situation had a happy ending. Bold, immediate, and intensive effort was applied to the situation by state, county, and local government agencies. Government, local businesses, and the private sector quickly formed an effective and far-reaching task force. By the time that true fear had begun to set in and people were beginning to sever local roots to go in search of sustenance, a renowned local investor was solicited to purchase the mill, and the state helped to arrange some commercial contracts and funding. Nonetheless, the city has been scarred by these tumultuous events and things haven't been quite the same since. They probably never will be.
It might not seem like much to you, when you read in the news that 400 people lost their jobs due to a factory closure. In fact, I believe that today we have come to the sorry place where we view these kinds of events as commonplace. However, when manufacturing stops, people become idle, and a village, a town ,or a small city dies, our world is changed in an unhealthy way, whether or not we care to recognize it.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear or two when I consider what could have been our alternate outcome to this situation. I give thanks for the valiant efforts that brought our historic paper mill back to life. Because for me, the loss of those livelihoods would have meant more than just empty homes, lost friends, and wondering, hungry eyes. For me the world would have been a far less inviting place if Park Falls, Wisconsin, had been simply left to die.
Be sure to check out other Big Company, Small Town posts.
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