CHILLICOTHE (From news reports) -- Leaders in Chillicothe, a city of about 22,000 people about an hour south of Columbus, have overseen a carefully planned downtown revitalization over the past decade.

Chillicothe officials, for instance, have launched continuous downtown trolley service and welcomed new building renovations that feature big-city amenities like a new brewery and luxury apartments.

The city also has been trying to tap into its tourism potential, which got a boost in 2023 when the United Nations declared the nearby Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks - Native American burial mounds built between 1,600 and 2,000 years ago - a World Heritage site. Chillicothe was Ohio's first capital city before it lost the designation for good in 1816, a fact that's referenced in the name of another brewery in town.

Efforts to show off its downtown and lean into its history have given Chillicothe a competing narrative it hopes combats the one created by the opioid epidemic, which generated national news coverage of the region in the 2010s.

But last week the city suffered a potential blow to its new storyline, one that

reflects an uncertain future shared by small cities like it across Ohio that are trying to pivot away from an old economy.

The headline in this chapter: The local paper mill -- the major employer that serves as an unofficial symbol for the city -- could be closing sometime this year.

"This is by far the darkest time I've ever seen since I've been there," said Jeff Allen, president of the United Steelworkers union chapter that represents many of the 826 employees who work there.

Paper company announces plans to close town's paper plant in two months

On March 15, Pixelle International, the plant's parent company, announced the factory, which has been operating in some form since the 1850s, would close in two months.

The news caught local, state and federal officials off-guard. It also rocked the community, whose mill workers generally make between $25 and $27 an hour, Allen said. The income taxes those employees pay provide the Chillicothe government with roughly 10% of its revenue, according to Mayor Luke Feeney.

Feeney, a Democrat, told Signal Ohio that he learned about the plant's closure around the same time everyone else did. He said he got the impression the plant managers had been kept in the dark, too.

The news didn't come as a total surprise. Pixelle announced the sale of a plant in Wisconsin earlier in the month. However, Feeney said it came as plant officials took steps that pointed toward continued operations, such as hiring employees and getting ready to negotiate a new labor contract.

"It's not like they were slowing down," Feeney said. "They just kind of pulled the plug."

Public officials pledge to fight to save jobs

The announcement spurred backlash from local politicians, including recently elected U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, a Westlake Republican. Moreno and his staff quickly organized a rally last Friday, where it seemed he planned to browbeat the company and its corporate parent, H.I.G. Capital, a private equity fund based in Miami, Florida. Moreno's efforts included a letter to Pixelle's CEO threatening an array of investigations into the company and H.I.G.'s other holdings.

Then, Pixelle performed an about-face, saying that the mill would remain open until the end of the year and that it would work with state officials to find a new buyer in the meantime.

The announced closure comes as President Donald Trump has unveiled a litany of tariffs against every country in the world, including Canada, a source of much of the imported timber that's used to make paper pulp. But Moreno, Feeney and others told Signal they don't believe the tariffs are a direct factor in the plant's closure, in part because the Chillicothe plant is sourced by local forests.

Moreno, joined by U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, U.S. Rep. Dave Taylor and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, shared the news at the rally on Friday. Moreno also announced that he will close some of his office space in Cleveland and open a new field office in Chillicothe to oversee the potential sale. He also said he'd instructed his top in-state staffer to move his family there, too.

Good news on Good Friday

Around 150 people gathered in a parking lot of a local credit union down the street from the mill to hear Moreno and the other politicians speak. At least a dozen wore black T-shirts that bore the Pixelle company logo, suggesting they're current employees.

The reprieve was announced on Good Friday, and Moreno said he saw some of God's providence in it.

"On this holiest day, let's think about what He gave us today, which is an opportunity," Moreno said. "That's all we can ever ask for."

The problem facing Chillicothe is similar to other "legacy cities," said Alison Gobel, executive director of the Greater Ohio Policy Center, a think tank that advocates for cities. Gobel said Feeney -- who sits on her organization's board -- has done a great job pursuing revitalization policies. The GOPC argues a strong downtown and community programming offers amenities for existing residents and helps attract workers in more diverse economic sectors such as healthcare and modern manufacturing,

But Chillicothe also was built around a legacy, a large manufacturing employer, which is vulnerable to displacement.

"A thriving downtown is super important," Gobel said. "It does not produce the employment taxes and wages quite at the same level as a major manufacturing company."

Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who also spoke at the rally, announced that the state will send members of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services' "rapid response" team to help advise affected employees about state resources. He also said JobsOhio, the state's private economic development arm, and its regional affiliate, Ohio Southeast Economic Development, would try to help arrange potential buyers and work with the mill's local suppliers to help find new sales opportunities within Ohio.

Mike Throne, the president and CEO of the Chillicothe Chamber of Commerce, said he's already begun to field calls from potential buyers.

"I don't know that all of them are paper companies," Throne said. "But there's some potential for use there. If it's not paper-making, it's going to be something else.

"But a concern I have for some of those prospective buyers or folks that would move in there is there probably would be fewer jobs than what we have there right now."

Mill makes paper used in carbon copies, which are being replaced by digital receipts

Throne, a former reporter, said the paper mill employed nearly three times as many people when he moved to Chillicothe in 1997 to take a job with the Chillicothe Gazette. The plant has downsized and had multiple owners since then. Its shrinking workforce represents the shrinking market for its underlying business. The mill makes "carbonless" paper -- the specialty paper that makes carbon copies that used to be commonly used for receipts and invoices. Today, the industry standard has shifted toward standard paper or the growing trend of digital receipts.

"The mill does not make products that are in high demand these days," said Jim Thompson, a Georgia-based paper industry consultant who grew up in Highland County, which is directly west of Chillicothe. "That's the basic problem."

Thompson also said the site will be difficult to redevelop. Unlike modern manufacturing facilities that contain assembly lines and other bolted-on equipment, he described paper mills as containing heavy concrete foundations with the equipment built into the buildings.

Some who spoke with Signal for this article complained that plant management had neglected to update the facility to allow it to produce paper with a greater commercial demand. But Thompson said retooling paper mills is, in most cases, not an option.

"There's virtually nothing you can do with that facility," he said.

That makes him skeptical of the announcement last Friday by Moreno and other politicians. In an interview, Thompson predicted that later this year, state officials will announce a company that will be a savior to the plant in exchange for millions of dollars in state incentives. He said he has seen this over and over again since the advent of the Internet.

"Depending on how crafty they are, they'll keep the mill open for a year or two years or three years," he said. "But I'd bet in five years, that mill will be dead. It just has no future."

Throne, the Chamber of Commerce CEO, said he's worried about what the plant's continued operations will look like throughout this year. He said he's already heard from people who are planning on finding other work. He doubts the company will fill vacant positions or be able to find people willing to take them.

He said that makes sense, but it also could hurt the plant's chances of finding a buyer by reducing the in-place workforce that could transition to working for the new owner.

"It's super important for us to acknowledge that folks who can leave will hurt production. And in that sense it's a Catch-22. And it's something that we're all going to have to address as a community," Throne said.

Worries about false hope

Jennifer Valentine, a former manager at the paper mill plant, is among those who attended the rally in Chillicothe last Friday. She said she left around the time H.I.G. acquired Pixelle, which she said corresponded with change n the company's top leadership.

She said she was inspired by what she heard from the public officials there Friday. But she said she worries keeping the factory open only until the end of the year puts current employees in a "difficult situation."

"Do they get out there and find something because they don't know what to expect?," said Valentine, who spent last Friday morning helping some current workers update their resumés. "In that sense, I think the extension is good. But what do employees do in the meantime? Do you really work hard for a company so they can drop you at the end of the year?"

Valentine said she's spoken to workers who say they're open to relocating.

"You know, not everybody is, but some people are thinking that," Valentine said.