The Halltown Mill in Halltown, West Virginia, hailed as the oldest continuously operating manufacturing plant in West Virginia, closed in November 2022.
According to local media reports, Jefferson County Development Authority Executive Director Dennis Jarvis confirmed the loss of approximately 70 jobs and indicated the owners potential reuse of the facility.
The Halltown Mill started in 1869 as a paper mill until it became an operational paper board mill. In 2007, it was purchased by Hanover, Pennsylvania based Ox Industries, one of the largest independently owned, vertically integrated producers of paperboard, specialty paper, tube & core, and protective packaging products.
The Halltown Mill once recycled 1.8 million gallons of water per day, had converted from coal-powered to natural gas, produced 120 tons of paperboard per day and employed more than 70 people.
It had been producing recycled paperboard since World War II and in its 153-year history had only four groups of owners. Pictures of the original Eyster family, Joseph Allison Eyster and his son George Eyster, who bought the mill in 1870, were featured in the mill offices in respect to the original ownership and the legacy they left to Halltown.
In August 2022, Ox Industries announced that it had acquired a 150,000-square-foot facility in Hanover to expand its capacity in the Mid-Atlantic Region. The facility will house next generation equipment and manufacturing practices and expand Just-in-Time (JIT) stocking products and services. CEO Kevin Hayward said that it was part of a $15 million investment that would vertically integrate with the company’s 100 percent recycled paperboard mills and create 50 new green-collar jobs.
Ox Industries was founded in 1996 as Ox Paper Tube & Core with just a handful of employees. The company has grown to over 500 employees with multiple mills and converting facilities across the country.
