Corinth lumber mill closes, 21 lose jobs Firm’s VP says potential buyer exists, equipment auction planned

CORINTH – A local lumber company has closed its doors for good, laying off 21 people and becoming another casualty of the struggling Maine wood industry, mill officials said Wednesday.

Owner Peter Higgins purchased what is now Corinth Products Co. Inc. 27 years ago and built pallets for surrounding factories. Over the last seven months, the company has been forced to consolidate operations to processing wood only, then selling the wood to another pallet manufacturer in the state.

The lumber mill once made 1,500 wood pallets a day.

“The wood product industry in Maine is in a crunch, and we felt that [crunch],” Burley Higgins, company vice president and the owner’s son, said Wednesday.

Higgins said there is interest in selling the company and there is a potential buyer for the lumber mill. An auction will be held in October to sell off equipment. Higgins said he hoped to generate enough revenue from the sale and the auction to pay off any outstanding bills.

Stephanie Smith, Corinth Products vice president and the owner’s daughter, said the company was working to get the 21 employees back on their feet with help from the state through Training and Development Corp. of Bangor. TDC told employees soon after the closing that they will receive help with training and education and have extended unemployment benefits and other services aimed at helping them find a new job.

The Higgins family saw its profits drop when factories it sold to declared bankruptcy and didn’t pay their bills. Other operations moved to China.

The owners also cited competition from Canadian companies.

The Corinth company’s owners said that this summer has been a difficult one for loggers because of the Georgia-Pacific mill closing in Old Town.

“There is no outlet for [the logger’s] pulp,” Burley Higgins said.

Peter Higgins also faulted high gas prices and their market, mainly in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, with being far away from their headquarters.

“We started to generate power from diesel fuel 10 years ago when it was 61 cents a gallon. Now it’s way up there,” Higgins said.