By Allison T. Williams 247-4535
April 17, 2010
ISLE OF WIGHT
— For years, Wayne Garrett Logging Inc., a family-owned business in Surry County, hauled all the timber it harvested to International Paper Corp. in southern Isle of Wight County.
“We depended on International Paper exclusively; 100 percent of our deliveries were still going to International Paper until the last couple of months,” said owner Wayne Garrett, who estimated that he was delivering up to 70 loads of timber to the mill weekly this time last year. “We started weaning away from them about two months ago and hauling more of our product to mills in West Point, Hopewell and Roanoke Rapids (N.C.).”
On Thursday, International Paper shut down its last two machines that produced sheet paper and coated paperboard, ending nearly a century of paper manufacturing in Isle of Wight County. Once the company shutters the plant this summer, more than 1,100 people will have lost their jobs.
And Isle of Wight County will have lost its largest taxpayer and its largest employer.
By R.E. Spears III (Contact) | Suffolk News-Herald
Published Friday, April 16, 2010
It seemed just like yesterday — or at least before the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement — that every community in the south housed a large textile facility or other large manufacturing-type facility.
Until recently our neighboring city, Franklin, fit that description to a “T.” International Paper was the company nearly everyone worked for, or at least a member of every family worked for.
Generations of men and women called that company their home until the paper industry slowed and International Paper leaders decided to shutter the plant last fall.
By Linda McNatt
Philip Walzer
The Virginian-Pilot
© April 16, 2010
FRANKLIN
A little after noon Thursday, Mary Rich glanced out the window of her antiques shop on Main Street.
The dense bursts of steam billowing above the International Paper mill less than a mile away had virtually vanished. Then it dawned on her: The mill was about to stop operating.
“It’s sad, sad,” Rich said. “Sad for the people, sad for the town. This is going to affect every single one of us.”
Last paper machines are shut down at IP
Published Friday, April 16, 2010
FRANKLIN—Thursday afternoon’s shift change at the International Paper Co. mill in Franklin had all the appearances of being a normal, routine activity.
Just as some of them had done thousands of times before, workers emerged from the beige, single-story building at the entrance to the mill and trickled into the parking lot to find their cars and go home.
But for all of the workers, Thursday was anything but a normal day at the mill. It was the last day paper would be made there. The Nos. 4 and 5 machines at the mill were shut down on Thursday.
