Lumber town in limbo

PRIEST RIVER — Hardworking. Tight knit. Loyal. And, worthy of second acknowledgment: hardworking. That’s how the small town Priest River residents describe themselves.

Stocked with the stoicism of blue-collar grit, the small riverfront town has always banked on its hardy residents to fuel the machine of its survival: the lumber mills.

Many of Priest River’s 1,800-odd residents are scions of pure timber industry pedigree — generations of lifelong truckers, loggers, mill workers. Each in turn duly inherit the unskilled labor, and not just because it’s all they know. A lumber mill career is a practical path, the only guarantee in town for a starting salary over minimum wage and extensive benefits, without college or even a high school diploma required.

And 10 years ago, it meant a lifetime of job security.

But not anymore.

Residents await the September closing of JD Lumber mill, one of the town’s leading employers that was purchased by Riley Creek this week. With the mill disposing more than 200 jobs, Priest River wavers between its possible fates, including bubbling into a tourist hub or fading into a ghost town. The prospect of any change, however, accompanies the possibility of losing its tight-knit, hardworking identity.

“We’ll recover, we’ve been through these tough times before,” said City Councilman Doug Wagner, adding that several local mills have closed during his 30 years in Priest River. New lumber companies have always sprung up eventually, and for now he has faith in the other local mills, Riley Creek Lumber and Stimson Lumber. “Most of (JD’s layoffs) we hope will be transferred to the other mills. Things are going to be a little bit tough for the families, but they’ll get through it.”

Others insist that timber’s future is bleak. Profits don’t balance the rising fuel costs for towing logs, and lumber demand is withering as high wood prices prompt construction companies to choose longer lasting materials like concrete.

Stimson and Riley Creek have winnowed employees down to day shifts only, with no night shifts to absorb the newly unemployed. Rumors abound that Stimson might soon board up its windows.

Other job options are scarce in Priest River. Main street is torpid on a weekday, a collection of ragtag antique stores with torn awnings. The industrial park, the town’s initiative to diversify business in the early ’80s, is full, with no remaining lots for new companies many would like to see.

Local businesses are acutely aware that this means hundreds of former mill workers and their families will likely stop eating out and shopping, even for the basics.

“It’s an awful lot to hit at one time,” said Martin Negle, president of the Priest River Development Corporation, adding that lumber mill wages filter through local businesses six or seven times before leaving the area. “The timing couldn’t be worse, with the state of the economy in general.”

Idaho Rigging, Priest River cable and chain shop, depends on the timber industry for about 95 percent of its business, said site manager Blair Eveland. They can’t afford to lose their mill customers any more than other businesses in town.

“For a lot of people, this is going to be real ugly,” he said.

Based on what the shop mechanic Shawn Hirst hears from customers, a mass exodus is on the horizon.

Out-of-work mill workers who see the lumber market dragging in the gutter expect that local mills can only afford to scoop up a sliver of the unemployed. The only prayer for those laid off from JD Lumber, the bread-and-butter for Hirst’s father, brother-in-law and half a dozen close friends, is to leave town and seek a different trade for the first time in their lives. Hirst’s father, who has worked at the mill for 18 years, is already planning to train as a semi-truck driver.

“Half this town will have to move,” Hirst said.

Polishing the town for more tourism appeal might soften the blow, but Eveland rolls his eyes imagining Priest River as “Sandpoint II.” Vacationers will build multimillion-dollar summer homes, he predicted, raising housing prices and pushing out the blue-collar workers who made up Priest River’s backbone for the last century.

If that’s the case, Hirst will move, he said, no question.

“The best time of year here is winter, because there’s a third of the people here,” he said of the summer throngs. “When I was a kid, you could go on vacation for a week and leave the keys on the seat of your car with the windows down and doors unlocked, and it would still be there. Since more tourists have come here, four wheelers are getting stolen, gear is stolen right out of your rig.”

Growth and tourism would ruin the town, said Andy Jasper, retired log trucker, as he stared at black and white photos of mill workers in Logger’s Bar on Thursday. What he meant, though, is that it would ruin the simple life that defines Priest River’s heritage.

“Everybody here has been a logger at one time,” he said with a shrug. Just as they all have a tie to the mills, they have ties to one another, and he recognizes everyone who strolls past his front porch. “Most people here I’ve known all my life.”

Now people are talking about buliding condos and golf courses to lure overnight travelers, which he considers tantamount to big-city crowds. “I guess things move on, but I don’t like it,” he muttered.

Waitresses at AJ’s Cafe agree their sleepy small town is ideal to raise a family.

“If my daughter walks down the street backward, I know about it,” said Johanna Johnson during her lunch break on Thursday. Throughout her 34 years in Priest River, the town has remained virtually the same, everyone helping each other and familiar faces greeting her across the counter each day.

But there’s no doubt that they would welcome a swarm of strangers at their stainless steel tables.

“If we don’t have change, we’re going to miss out,” Johnson said of catering to out-of-towners.

Owner Wendy Malnar said the timber industry generates half of the restaurant’s business, and she shook her head at all the different people who will lose paychecks, including those with other trades associated with the mill, such as truckers. Better to have tourists compensate that loss than dump all hope onto the dwindling regulars.

“Because I’m a business owner I can say that, but I’m not sure everyone would agree,” Malnar said. “I’d say that anyone who wants to make a living would say that as well.”

Cheryl Pumnea, owner of the Feed Mill Steakhouse, has already walked the plank she expects many others will be forced to follow: putting her restaurant up for sale.

Advertising the barnlike establishment well under its value for months, she admits she’s desperate to sell and even more desperate to get out of town, even though she grew up in Priest River and raised three sons there.

 “The town itself it was a great place to raise the kids — a lot of good, positive, hardworking people,” Pumnea said. “But it’s very hard to make money here.”

Slow doesn’t begin to describe the measly crowds she suffers now that gas prices are up and fewer people eat out. With a chunk of the town now out of work, the tables won’t be packed anytime soon.

And she’s convinced tourism doesn’t stand a chance keeping the town afloat.

Out-of-town interest picks up occasionally throughout the year; the campgrounds are currently filled for the summer, and snowmobiling and cross country skiing hook visitors during the winter.

But much of the tourism revenue trickles in from people just stopping to eat or gas up on their way to Priest Lake or Canada, with only a few staying overnight.

“There’s nothing to hold them here, like Silverwood Theme Park in Coeur d’Alene,” Pumnea said. “I hope someone buys (the restaurant) and does something with it that can make money, because right now it’s not. I think it would be a great mechanic’s shop.”

Moving is an unsettling prospect for Lou Koch, even though she has few options after losing her job at JD Lumber after nine years.

“I’ve been married 28 years and always lived in the same place,” she said. “My father was the same way — he was a logger and that’s all he ever did. He lived in the same house his whole life.”

Seeing Priest River struggle for survival is just as unsettling. She can’t imagine a different future for the town any more than she can for herself, and she bases her hopes on the only financial absolution her family and town has ever known: “maybe they’ll build another mill.”

For now, she waits to hear if Stimson will bring back a night shift before JD closes. If not, she’ll soon discover that scraping for a living without a mill is, well, hard work.