Two nights after we had dinner with our next-door neighbors, who moved here just about a year ago after one of them got a job at the mill in Canton, word began to seep out on social media that the mill would be closing, miserable and frightening rumors which were shortly thereafter confirmed by company executives to a roomful of employees and then reported all over the news.  

The 185-acre paper mill at the heart of Canton is the most visible sign of Pactiv Evergreen’s corporate presence in Haywood County, but they also own dozens of other parcels worth tens of millions of dollars.

For decades, concern about water quality has been the central tension between Canton’s paper mill and the environmental advocates monitoring it. When the plant closes this year, those issues are likely to fade with the final whistle — but even the mill’s longtime critics aren’t rejoicing.

“Americana”: noun. Things associated with the culture and history of America.

“Grief”: noun. Deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement; deep sorrow.

“Nostalgia”: noun. Pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing you could experience it again; derived from the Greek language, with “nostos” meaning homecoming and “algos” meaning ache.

At 94 years young, Ben Best is proud of several things in his long, bountiful life — a marriage of 67 years and counting, raising three healthy sons, being a grandfather, a loyal friend to many, and a hard-scrabble Haywood County farmer.

No one living can remember a time when there wasn’t a paper mill at the heart of Canton. Now, after 115 years in operation, it all comes down to three months.

To visitors, the noise seems strange and maybe even concerning. To folks in Canton, it sounds like home.

When Pactiv Evergreen shuts its doors in a few short months, about 1,000 employees will be out of work. And while that number is devastating, it doesn’t begin to show the full picture.

On Aug. 10, 2012, I took on my first assignment for The Smoky Mountain News. It was the “Papertown” album release show by Haywood County bluegrass sensation Balsam Range.

“The mill.” In Canton, as in hundreds of other towns across America, that was the only description needed to describe the factory that drove a small town’s economy, which generations depended on for their livelihood and some for their very identity.