Palmyra sawmill to close

PALMYRA – The nine employees of Ames True Temper Co. soon will lose their jobs because the sawmill is closing, a company representative confirmed Friday.

Ames, located on Main Street in West Palmyra, is scheduled to close in eight weeks. The sawmill makes dowels used for tool handles.

A man who answered the phone at the local plant on Friday said employees are aware of the closure, but then referred all questions to manager Rod Underhill, who is not available until next week.

Dan Sprague, chairman of the town’s Board of Selectmen, said the mill has been operating in town for more than a century.

“They’ve been there since the 1890s or something like that,” he said Friday afternoon. “It’s been a mill since I’ve been in town, and I’ve been in town for 50 years. My father worked there years ago as a sawyer.”

Sprague had not previously heard the sawmill was closing.

“That’s the only sawmill we have in town that does that type of stuff,” he said.

Parent company Ames True Temper Inc. of Camp Hill, Pa., manufactures and markets nonpowered lawn and garden tools and equipment in the United States, Canada and Ireland and through a joint venture in Asia, according to the company’s Web site. The company operates five U.S. manufacturing facilities and 10 wood mills, including the one in Palmyra.

Ames True Temper is owned by Castle Harlan Inc., a New York-based private equity investment firm, as well as various management members, the Web site states.

Calls to Ames True Temper in Pennsylvania to find out why the Maine sawmill would be closed were not immediately returned.