A Mill Town Lost Its Mill. What Is It Now?

New York Times

21-07-2025

The first thing the mill workers noticed on what they later deemed 'Black Monday' was the series of dark S.U.V.s pulling up near the paper mill, at the heart of Canton, N.C. The mill's hulking towers and plumes of smoke were visible for miles, rising above the Pigeon River and the trees that stretched like green ribbon across the mountains.
Jody Mathis, who managed the mill's warehouse and coached the high school football team, was called to a meeting just after 5 p.m. When he arrived, men were streaming out of an earlier meeting, their faces twisted in pain.
'We're done,' Mr. Mathis, 52, recalled a friend saying. He replied, 'Done? What do you mean?' Then he noticed that all around him were burly men in their overalls weeping.
Like a metronome, Canton's paper mill set the rhythm of life here for some 115 years. Residents in neighboring communities said they could smell the mill from as far away as Asheville, 20 miles east. It was putrid, like rotten eggs. People in Canton learned not to complain; to them, it was 'the smell of money.' Curious children, hearing their parents repeat this, buried their faces in dollar bills to check.
If the odor kept visitors away, nobody minded. The locals were proud of the mill, which employed hundreds in town and allowed its residents to build homes and send their children to college.
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