State timber plan worries the biggest employer in town

DARRINGTON — In a town where the high school mascot is the Loggers, timber is embedded into the community’s identity and its way of life. But changes in state forest management will put Darrington’s largest employer, the Hampton Mill, at risk.

The mill has 175 employees, most of whom live in or near town, and it got word in December that the state Department of Natural Resources will reduce the amount of timber it can buy from state forests over the next decade.

This comes after an August meeting when mill executives told the state director of public lands Hilary Franz they’d need more logs to stay afloat.

Bad news for a rural lumber town

The mill’s log supply comes from a combination of state, federal and private timber.

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Sad to say the northwest is full of small timber towns which are shadows of their former selves.