Workers Hit Hard by Unexpected Closing of Paper Mill

Many parishioners in Fr. Jim Jackson's three parishes, St. Anthony de Padua, Park Falls; Immaculate Conception, Butternut; and St. Francis of Assisi, Fifield lost jobs when SMART Papers LLC closed permanently in March.

Some of the newly unemployed have working spouses who are scrambling to pick up the slack. Some do not. People are gearing down and spending less. Some have already left the Park Falls area and found jobs elsewhere. Others don't want to leave their homes and are waiting it out, hoping the mill, which has been in operation for more than 100 years, will be purchased and reopened by another company [snip] Superior Catholic Herald