G4 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020
Cindy Hansen graduated from
high school in 1987 and was
working seasonal jobs at a can-
ning plant and cranberry proces-
sor before taking a step up to
working at the paper mill.
A few years later, Darrell Fox
wore his high school letter jacket
to the interviews and physical at
the mill just weeks after his 18th
birthday. His older brothers
worked there, as had his dad, and
it was all he had wanted to do.
Cindy trained Darrell when he
started his new job, and after the
two became good friends, he
worked up the courage to ask her
out.
Now married for 23 years, they
have two sons, a home and land in
remote Wisconsin they use as a
getaway, all supported by their
dual wages at the mill. “We basi-
cally could buy what we needed,
when we needed it,” said Cindy,
51.
They have now ratcheted back
their expectations from moving
forward to just not losing what
they have. “My goal is to not give
anything up — we don’t want to
have to sell anything,” said Dar-
rell, 47.
They believe they are more
fortunate than most, however,
and have been interviewing for
other jobs already. But those jobs
pay considerably less, casting a
shadow over their future retire-
ment.
“We told the boys it is not going
to be the same, and we can’t be
buying them expensive things
anymore,” Cindy said.
“We never spend foolishly, but
you didn’t think twice if you
wanted something — you could
make it work,” Darrell said. “It’s
not going to be like that any-
more.”Paper pioneer
The mill sits hard on the banks
of the Wisconsin River, white
water churning at its feet and
white plumes billowing overhead
from its tallest stack, about 28
stories up. Rows of logs waiting to
be masticated into pulp stretch
for nearly a half-mile, looming
like the glacial ridges that dot the
state.
The plant was once a hub of
innovation. In 1904 it was the
first to use electricity to power its
paper machinery and pioneered
making coated, glossy paper
cheaper and faster, according to
company histories.
The mill long ago boasted that
it was the largest manufacturer of
paper in the world, and in the
1930 s became the sole manufac-
turer of the stock used to print
Life magazine, according to a
history produced by the Works
Progress Administration in the
1940 s.
The company says its list of
current customers is confiden-
tial.
Many Wisconsin Rapids resi-
dents have lived parts of this
history.
Rick Armagost is almost liter-
ally a product of the mill. His
parents met there in the 1950s,
with his dad eventually putting in
40 years. “I’ve been a mill rat all
my life,” he said.
He joined the Marines after
high school in the 1970s, then
came back to Wisconsin Rapids
and put in his application at the
plant. In 1984, he got the call to
start.
“That’s where you went to
work,” he said. “It’s gotten me
everything, on a high school edu-
cation.”
At 26, the wages were good
enough that he was able to buy a
120-acre farm outside of town,
where he keeps about 20 head of
beef and dairy cows.
Over time, though, he saw his
earning power erode. His father
had a higher standard of living
working at the plant than he does,
he said. “He went on a hunting
trip and a fishing trip every year.
He had a new vehicle every cou-
ple years. I have never had a new
vehicle.”
He added: “That’s just America
now.”
At 60, retirement is still far off.
Armagost is discouraged by the
thought of going back to school
because he thinks his age would
further dim his prospects of get-
ting a job by the time he finished.
“I don’t know what I am going
to do,” he said starkly. Still, he
feels worse for others.
“It is going to be bad for this
town,” he said. “It is not just the
900 who work here. It is going to
have a trickle-down effect on the
whole town.”Psychological toll
Businesses in Wisconsin Rap-
ids, battered by the economic
reaction to the coronavirus, are
already feeling the impact.
Amy Sheide, 50, had already
burned through her retirement
income to make payroll at Great
Expectations, her family’s restau-
rant and catering company, when
the coronavirus struck. Then
came the shock that the mill
would close.
With only a few more pay-
checks coming, mill workers are
forgoing dinners out and aren’t
hosting catered events. What
SEE PAPER MILL ON G5The coronavirus is proving to
be a decisive Darwinian force in
industries from retail to energy to
transportation, culling some
businesses that might have been
weakening for years while giving
others a new jolt of life. The
swiftness has been stunning, with
each closure in turn affecting
other businesses and their work-
ers, as has been playing out al-
ready around Wisconsin Rapids.
“It impacts the 900 employees
directly in the plant,” said Missy
Hughes, secretary and CEO of the
Wisconsin Economic Develop-
ment Corporation. “But the im-
portant thing to keep in mind is
that the plant purchases and pro-
cesses 25 percent of the timber
coming off Wisconsin’s land. That
impacts the haulers who are
bringing the wood to the plant, it
impacts the loggers who are cut-
ting down the wood, and then it
affects the landowners.
“In Wisconsin, 2.4 million
acres of managed forest is owned
by counties, and they use the
proceeds of the sales to fund their
government operations,” Hughes
said.
The closure is yet another de-
stabilizing economic event in a
state that Donald Trump carried
only narrowly in 2016. The mill
shutdown will result in the larg-
est permanent layoff in Wiscon-
sin since the coronavirus barreled
into the economy, according to
layoff notices submitted to the
state, shocking a county that
Trump carried overwhelmingly
with nearly 57 percent of the vote.
A local task force is exploring
options to save the plant, which
the company will continue to
maintain in case a buyer emerges.
One option being pushed by log-
gers in the Great Lakes Timber
Professionals Association is the
formation of a cooperative to put
the plant into the hands of the
people who feed it and depend
upon it.
Known as the Dairy State, Wis-
consin is also a paper state. The
industry in Wisconsin sells more
paper, employs more people and
has more paper mills than any
other state, according to a 2019
study.
But the paper market, like ev-
erything, has been rocked by the
coronavirus.
When it announced the shut-
down, the company cited re-
search that found demand for
printing paper fell 38 percent
year-over-year in April. The re-
search forecast an even greater
plunge to come, with operating
rates falling 70 percent in the
second quarter.
The trend line for the Wiscon-
sin mill’s paper had been pitched
downward long before the pan-
demic, however.
Katie Mencke, a senior consul-
tant for paper industry research-
ers and advisers Fisher Interna-
tional, noted that the market for
coated paper had been in decline
for more than a decade as digital
media supplanted print.
C ovid-19, the disease caused by
the coronavirus, only accelerated
it, though dramatically.
“It was a very sudden stop,”
said Mencke, comparing it to the
last economic downturn to ham-
mer the paper industry. “With the
Great Recession, it was a very
slow start.”
She noted some of the ways the
coronavirus has eroded demand
for magazines: Retail stores have
removed them from end caps to
reduce “touch points” for shop-
pers, salons are closed or have
discarded them, and flights that
haven’t been canceled don’t have
airline magazines onboard to
keep the planes cleaner.
At the same time, the market
for other kinds of paper, such as
packaging, is improving. But the
costs of retooling the highly spe-
cialized machinery in a paper
mill is enormous, she said.
In a statement, the company
said it explored options for the
plant, including converting it to
make different paper, but has
“been unsuccessful in finding a
viable, economical and sustain-
able alternative.”
“There is so much capital in-
vested in those mills, it is never
easy for a company to walk away
from that,” said Mencke. “When a
company decides to shut some-
thing down, it is because it is the
best case for the dollars, but it
hurts the town and all of these
families.”
Looming changes
Many in Wisconsin Rapids can
point to where the branches of
their family tree are intertwined
with the mill. In some cases,
multiple family members work
there now.
PAPER MILL FROM G1
Mill closing
ripples
across state
economy
PHOTOS BY LAUREN JUSTICE FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTThe Wisconsin Rapids
Mill, seen at top July 27,
was key to the local
economy. Amy Scheide,
second from top, owns a
restaurant and catering
company in town.
ABOVE, CLOCKWISE
LEFT: Logger Laura
Delaney at a job site in
Arkdale, Wis. Timber
harvested by Delaney’s
firm. The Wisconsin
River in Wisconsin
Rapids.