End of an era: Columbia Falls mills close Friday
Plum Creek’s manufacturing plants in Columbia Falls as seen from the air earlier this year.
Weyerhaeuser will end production at its Columbia Falls plywood plant and sawmill Friday, the company has announced, marking the end of an era in Columbia Falls.
Weyerhaeuser Resources Team Leader Tom Ray said some staff will stay on to finish end work and shipping for a few weeks after that.
The original sawmill, built by businessman and Plum Creek founder D.C. Dunham, started up in 1946. Dunham opened a mill in Columbia Falls and named it Plum Creek, after a small stream in Minnesota.
Dunham’s mill initially had just 10 employees, but it grew quickly and by 1947 it had more than 50 employees.
His family sold the business to Northern Pacific Railway, which merged with the Great Northern and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroads to become Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970.
In 1988, Burlington Northern spun off its resources business, Plum Creek, to Burlington Resources. Plum Creek Timber Co. went public in June 1989 and grew to one of the largest landowners and timber companies in the U.S.
But last year the company announced it would merge with Weyerhaeuser and on June 22, Weyerhaeuser announced it would close the two Columbia Falls mills.
The two mills employed about 230 workers, but about 146 of them were offered jobs at the company’s Evergreen mills and some employees voluntarily left. The remaining workers, about 72 people, will be laid off.
The company has blamed a lack of logs for the mill closures, which are permanent.
In addition to the mill closures, the Cedar Palace, which houses the company’s administrative and support staff, will close by year’s end. About 100 jobs will be lost in that closure, though some employees will retain jobs in a smaller office in downtown Columbia Falls.
The Columbia Falls Medium Density fiberboard plant will continue to operate. It has about 200 employees.
Ray said the company hasn’t determined what it will do with the shuttered mills at this point. He said the top priority was to safely close the facilities.