From sawing logs to serving cappuccino?
The mill's closure did not come as a surprise. After the night staff was laid off last spring, only 96 mill workers remained, down from 250 during the mill's heyday. Yet residents not only worked at the mill for five generations, they also lived in company houses, shopped at company stores and watched movies at the company theater. Some sacrificed fingers and hearing to the sawmill's teeth and roar.
Now, Frank Johnson Jr., a sawmill operator for 41 years, worries about the transformation of his working town into a cluster of knick-knack shops, restaurants and bed-and-breakfast inns. "It's going to be a yuppie joint," he told The Oregonian. - Heather Abel
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