Last week, Pixelle Specialty Solutions announced plans to close its Chillicothe paper mill.
The announcement sparked local outrage — the mill is one of the biggest employers in the southern Ohio city and its closure would cost upwards of 800 workers their jobs.
So, after a conversation with U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, it changed course. Now, the paper mill says it will stay open through the end of the year as it looks for an interested buyer.
“Paper making has been a staple of our local economy for more than 200 years,” said Mike Throne, president and CEO of the Chillicothe Ross Chamber of Commerce. “We know how to do this and we do it well.”
Though not a guarantee, he says he believes it’s possible Pixelle will secure a sale in coming months.
“What we really need is somebody that's going to come into the mill, improve the working conditions for the folks that work there and commit to a future for production down the road,” he said.
Chillicothe’s paper making history
Chillicothe has a long history of making paper.
Starting in the early 1800s, two Quaker brothers, Hezekiah and Isaiah Ingham, opened a paper facility on the shores of the Kinnikinnick Creek, just north of the city.
The Mead Corporation acquired it at the end of the 19th century, and operated the mill for more than a hundred years.
“It’s considered an icon in our community,” Throne said. “There's a large smokestack, orange and white, that towers above the skyline here, and you can see it from the highway.”
Pixelle Specialty Solutions acquired the mill in 2019. By that time, Throne said, generations of Chillicothe families had gone to work making paper.
The economic impact of paper
Today, the paper mill employs more than 800 people and is tightly tied to the local economy.
“There are businesses in town that are called the Paper City this and the Paper City that, Mill City this, Mill City that,” Throne said. “It’s part of our identity, really.”
"Generation after generation has worked at that paper mill...It's part of our identity. You can't threaten to take away a piece of people's identity without there being an immense feeling of fighting to survive."Mike Throne, Chillicothe Ross Chamber of Commerce
If the mill permanently closes, he worries workers will leave the area in search of new jobs.
“No one wants to see that,” he said.
But the impact won’t stop there. Ancillary businesses, like local logging and trucking companies, would be affected by the mill’s closure too.
“If those things start to go away, now that affects every other business around,” Throne said. “The restaurants, the apparel shops, the clothing stores, even our chain businesses along Bridge Street, which is our main retail thoroughfare here, are going to be affected because job loss creates uncertainty, which then creates lower spending.”
Still, Throne is optimistic about Chillicothe’s future, no matter what happens to the paper mill.
“We have survived floods and fires and recessions and COVID and all kinds of other things that have devastated this community and turned it into a ghost town,” he said. “All of those things we've overcome. And the people that live here have that same spirit of all those ancestors that did those things to keep this community the way it is. I have no doubt in my mind that it'll continue to be that way.”
