BALLARD COUNTY, KY (From news reports) - The buyer backed out. According to media reports, back in September there was a buyer interested in the Wickliffe Verso paper mill. Verso officially closed the facility July of 2016, leaving hundreds out of a job. Many were hoping if the mill sold, some of those jobs would come back to the area.

The company would not say why the deal fell through, or how the company is planning to re-market it. A company spokesperson says that's all confidential information.

Town and Country store manager Hope Patterson says friends and family have started to thin out in town. "A lot of closeness that's not here anymore in the town. It's saddening to all of us," she says.

With word the mill might sell, smoke from the stacks meant hope that business might come back to town. Patterson says, "You see a Verso truck in town, you're like: Yes! It's not going to be that exciting anymore."

But now with the holidays, and word the mill did not sell, she says people are starting to lose hope. "This was going to be something good for Christmas, or so to know it was going to be open, and now it's not," she says.

There are still some employees there to supervise the property in the meantime, but it is not known how many employees or how long they'll continue to be there.

****

Jim Thompson is back again...with a new book on a taboo subject: the personalities in the pulp & paper industry. Jim has written in the past on many subjects based on his four plus decades in the worldwide pulp and paper industry. This new book is packed full of information valuable to the senior member of the industry as well as the recent entrant. A must for every pulp and paper library.