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After 57 years, the Androscoggin paper mill will close in 2023. The mill was built by International Paper in 1965, but the town of Jay has been making paper in several mills since 1888.

Here’s a brief history of the mill over the last five decades.

International Paper, then the largest paper company in the world, builds the Androscoggin Mill in 1965. At peak, 1,500 people worked there.

Roughly 1,200 workers leave their jobs, part of a historic 16-month strike.

The front page of the Lewiston Journal on June 16, 1987.

IP sells the mill to CMP Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Verso Paper Holdings LLC. At the time, the Androscoggin Mill employed 1,000 people.

Verso lays off 300 people and files for bankruptcy the next year.Advertisement

The front page of the Sun Journal, Aug. 21, 2015.

Verso lays off 190 employees and idles the No. 3 machine.

New investments of $17 million upgrade and restart the No. 3 machine, creating 120 new jobs. At the time of the announcement, the company employed 400 people.

Pixelle Specialty Solutions, based in Pennsylvania, buys the Jay mill from Verso. Pixelle becomes the largest specialty paper producer in North America. At the time of purchase, the mill had roughly 500 employees.

A wood pulp digester ruptured, causing a massive explosion that destroyed the mill’s pulp machines and ultimately resulted in a decision by ownership not to rebuild the digesters and to shut down one of its paper machines. Between April and October that year, 177 workers were laid off.

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