Our town...

Berlin, NH is a blue collar town. Always has been. This has been a place where people rolled up their sleeves to make a living. The biggest part of this town's heritage has to do with paper, thanks to the Brown Company and the mill. Lumberjacks were the backbone of this industry, which also gave our town a strong heritage. There was also a paper mill in Gorham, the next town over.

Some years back, the company changed hands, and then changed again. The mills tended to get worse each time. The market didn't help; amazingly enough it became cheaper to purchase paper from other countries. Eventually the mill in Berlin closed, and then the one in Gorham, although it managed to hang on a lot longer.

Thankfully the one in Gorhm wasn't closed too long. New owners came along just over the past year and have slowly been building it up again. The old mill in Berlin was 70% destroyed, with one spectacular day of all but one of the smoke stacks demolished. But there was hope; a company wanted to use the last boiler and biggest smoke stack and convert it to a wood burning biomass energy plant. There've been many hurdles on the way, but recently work to convert the boiler had officially begun. The plant is slated to have 40 full time positions, and expected to create other jobs in ancilliary  form throughout the area.

This is good. This is what Berlin needs. Also, recently there's the possibility of an airplane manufacturer that will use energy from the plant and create a factory to manufacture airplane parts next to the biomass plant. This place could produce up to 150 + jobs. 

Along with a state prison that came in about 12 years ago, and a Federal prison built not that far from the state prison recently, that's slated to open next year. More jobs.

All these factors make it an exciting time in the area. There've been talks in the past about what to put on the mill site: A mall, a casino, a resort, a four year college. All interesting ideas, but none of those ideas are distinctly Berlin-ish. It's created some arguments, particularly among some of my more hippy like friends. The four year college is the only one I really agreed with, but not on the mill site.

Some people were hoping with the mills gone that we could change Berlin to a tourist trap town like the Conway area. I just didn't see that happening. Expecting people that worked in factories to work in retail or hotels just doesn't make sense. The people in this town want to make stuff

Manufacturing jobs is exactly what this town needs. Looks like we're close to getting that kind of identity back. If (and I know, it's a big if)  this airplane parts factory pans out, then Berlin, NH a blue collar town, with blue collar people, will be on its way to getting back its pride.