Like the Clark Fork River, businesses in Bonner breathing new life since 2008 dam removal

Although advocates of free-flowing rivers saw the spring of 2008 as momentous because of the historic removal of the Milltown Dam, it was a tumultuous low point for the workers and their families at the Stimson lumber mill in Bonner a few hundred yards from the dam.

That March, coincidentally, crews got a 60-day notice of the mill’s impending full shutdown, which meant more than 100 workers would lose their jobs due to what company officials said was a downturn in the timber industry. Before Stimson owned the mill, Champion International employed roughly 400 workers there.

The mill was by far the largest employer in Bonner and one of the larger employers in the county, and its closure followed on the heels of the shutdown of the Bonner plywood plant the year before.

DAVID ERICKSON [email protected]

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