Residents of the town of Elizabeth were devastated to learn in 1981 that their only industry, Boise Southern’s Elizabeth paper mill, would be closing its doors.

“Conflicting rumors had floated through the air for weeks, alternating between modernization and expansion for the antiquated mill or impending closure,” according to an article in the Nov. 17, 1985, American Press documenting the mill’s tear down.

On Nov. 11, 1981, residents received their answer.

The town was founded, owned and initially operated by the Industrial Lumber Company. The company owned two mills in nearby Oakdale and Vinton, when in 1907 it located a new mill site at Elizabeth and platted the town. The mill site and adjacent town were in the heart of a 70,000-acre parcel of long-leaf yellow pine acquired by Industrial in 1905.

The name Elizabeth was chosen as a tribute to the daughter of Sam Parks, one of the men who established the mill.

Operations at the Elizabeth mill began in 1909. Office buildings, houses, stores and the town’s only hospital — all owned and operated by the lumber company — popped up soon after.

At its peak, Elizabeth had a population of 5,000, according to the American Press, and the section of town men lived in depended on the work they did at the mill — there was a spot for managers, millers, turpentine workers and woodsman.

When the yellow pine forest was completely cut, subsequent plantings were of slash pines — a fast-growing long-needed pine used for paper and particle board.

To prevent the land around Elizabeth from losing value after logging, Industrial also established farms, a sweet potato curing plant and a canning plant.

The Industrial Lumber Company continued in business until 1942, when it disbanded its sawmill operations and leased the industrial site to the Calcasieu Paper Company, which had built a facility for the manufacturing of craft pulp and paper in Elizabeth in 1926.

In 1946, C.G. McGehee’s Jacksonville Paper Company acquired the Calcasieu Paper Company. Along with the acquisition, McGehee took on Industrial’s lease of the town. Soon after, McGehee moved his paper bag manufacturing operations to Elizabeth.

In 1955 McGehee purchased the town outright and for nearly 10 years Elizabeth was owned by a single man. That changed in 1964 when Gov. Jimmie Davis signed a proclamation of incorporation for Elizabeth, making it an entity impossible to be owned.

When the mill’s complete closure was announced in 1981, the facility had 400 people on its payroll.

“The first reactions of shock, dismay, anger and disappointment soon gave way to determination that the town would not go the way of the mill,” the American Press article reads.

The millworkers began to find new jobs — mainly at Fort Polk and offshore with the oil industry.

Four years after the mills’ closure, the first reunion of its former staff was held.  Nearly 100 met in the Pavilion of Finke Park to talk about old times.

“We got scattered out some, but not too bad,” Edward Tilton, who headed the reunion coordination, told the American Press.

One former worker, Harry Fontenot — who was then employed by the Louisiana Department of Corrections in Angola — traveled the longest distance to attend the reunion. He told his friends he worked a 12-hour sift before driving about 165 miles to Elizabeth for the reunion and would work another 12-hour shift when he returned.

Others attended from Calcasieu, Evangeline, Beauregard, Vernon and Allen parishes.

Included in the group were men and women whose length of service at the mill ranged from a few years to more than 40. Hance Chance, Sam Bufkin and Tilton were among those who began working at the mill while still in their teens and were employed there more than 30 years.

“We had something at this mill that they don’t have anywhere else,” Tilton said.