WILLOW CREEK — The Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company closed permanently on March 15, idling its remaining 87 workers and ending 69 years of continuous operation on the banks of the Willow River.

The Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company closes permanently after 69 years, idling 87 remaining workers as the final log comes through the saw carriage at 3:14 PM and the whistle blows for the last time.
The Willow Creek Hardwood Flooring Company closes permanently after 69 years, idling 87 remaining workers as the final log comes through the saw carriage at 3:14 PM and the whistle blows for the last time.

Mill Manager Robert T. Cunningham cited three factors in the closure: competition from lower-cost southern hardwood mills, rising transportation costs, and the expiration of a key timber lease on the upper West Branch.

“We have exhausted every option,” Cunningham told the assembled workers on the final morning. “I am sorry. This is not the ending any of us wanted.”

The closure had been anticipated since the layoffs of 1966, but the final announcement still landed like a blow. The mill had been the town’s largest employer since 1903, when it opened with 85 workers processing white oak and hard maple from surrounding timberlands.

“I knew it was coming,” said Leo Cormier, the sawyer who had run the carriage since 1948. “I’ve been watching the orders shrink for years. But knowing it’s coming doesn’t prepare you for the day it actually arrives.”

The final log — a northern red maple, 22 inches at the butt, cut from a woodlot on Farr Road that had been supplying the mill since 1928 — came through the saw carriage at 3:14 PM. The final whistle blew at 4:00 PM.

“There was no speech, no ceremony,” the Gazette reported. “The whistle blew, and people walked out to their cars. Some were crying. Most were silent.”

The Gazette published a special 16-page retrospective tracing the mill’s history from its 1903 opening through its peak production years in the 1950s to its final decline. The edition sold out within hours and has become a collector’s item.

The closure is the single most consequential economic event in Willow Creek in the 20th century. Within six months, unemployment in the town will reach 28 percent. Families will leave at a rate of approximately one per week. The population, already in decline, will drop from 1,954 to 1,723 by the 1980 census.

“The sound of the planer has been the heartbeat of this town for seven decades,” the Gazette editorialized. “Today, that heartbeat stopped. What comes next, no one can say.”

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