The Story of Mill Towns in a Changing Industry

http://www.startribune.com/business/179601951.html?refer=y&refer=y 
The North American paper industry is in rapid decline. Historically a bulwark in the forests of Minnesota, mills have cut thousands of workers and are competing for a shrinking market. A mill in Sartell that closed this year after a Memorial Day explosion was the latest to go dark.

"It's kind of disheartening," said Jim Skurla, an economist at the University of Minnesota Duluth. "Paper's never going to disappear, but it's going to be smaller than it has been."
River towns in the forest from eastern Washington to the coast of Maine have lost more than a hundred paper mills in a wave of consolidation in little more than a decade -- a trend most people in the industry expect to continue. Wisconsin has lost nine paper mills since 2005.