WISCONSIN RAPIDS, WI (WSAU) — The final days of the paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids are being documented.
Mayor Matt Zacher says the idea came from residents and the city’s community media division, with the property owners and Midwest Rail and Dismantling signing off on the plan. “Community media will be getting that footage and putting it together, working their magic like they do. They’ll put it out for the community so everybody can see it.”
Zacher says many people were documenting the scene with their own cameras for personal reasons, especially those with close ties to the building and what it’s meant to the city. He adds that the project shows respect for the building’s history while celebrating what’s to come. “Knowing what I know about how fast life goes, [I’m sure] it seems like yesterday that they built the mill. I have nothing but respect for the people who built this. At the same time we should celebrate the future and what we have to move towards, be excited for the community and what’s possible.”
As for the future, Zacher says that’s still up in the air and could depend on what happens with tariff negotiations. Additionally, he doesn’t want to see the city get to reliant on AI data centers because they take a lot of power and don’t provide many jobs. “The tricky part to them is that they want the power, understandably so. Once they have the power, they will use it because that’s their business model. I appreciate and respect the data companies and what they are doing; it’s a big part of our future. But as the leader of a community I need to stay focused on all avenues to bring in employment, economy, money, and skills. So as much as you can, you try to keep all the doors open.
“[The discussion was] something along the lines of ‘if it’s going to cost less to build things inside the United States because of the tariffs, then we need to find a facility to do that.’ So we will see how things play out now that there is a pause and all those other things are happening,” added Zacher.
Other topics Zacher discussed with WSAU’s Mike Leischner include:
Start of video- Dismantling of the mill and what’s next
10:10- Applebee’s closed
12:00- Street construction update
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