DARBY, Mont. -- Each morning for more than a decade, Harry Thorning got out of bed to drive his 18-wheeler loaded with Darby Lumber wood chips more than 250 miles south to Rexburg, Idaho.
The long haul took him over four mountain passes. In bad weather, he'd chain up eight times.He loved his job, and it paid well.
The mill south of Darby shut down last year, forcing the 55-year-old truck driver to take a major detour in life. He still leaves home at daybreak each morning, but now he drives a 1983 Nissan compact car with a pile of math, computer and metallurgy textbooks at his side.
The new road he travels takes him almost 70 miles north to Missoula and the University of Montana. Along his journey he passes the old mill site. Warehouses stand hauntingly vacant, and the old log yard lies empty.
It's been almost a year since Darby Lumber announced the mill wouldn't reopen, about 16 months since the initial shutdown put almost 100 people out of work. But many of the former employees still feel the impact.
At the time, Robert Russell, Darby Lumber's chief executive officer, cited a poor timber market as a key reason for the closure. Lumber prices were at an all-time low, while timber sold on federal lands was becoming more scarce and costly. Compounding the situation was an economic crisis in Asian financial markets that hurt exports and left wood products stacked high in American lumber yards.
The mill went on the market but didn't sell. Eventually it was auctioned off, piece by piece.
Some former employees moved, driven away by a lack of well-paying jobs. Many others found work but at lower wages. A few took advantage of a federal program that retrains former workers, offering tuition and support dollars to learn a new skill.
Many of Darby's displaced workers are finding it difficult, at best, to adjust to the changing economy of the West.
"I don't think people realize how hard it is to start over," says Norma Mitchell. She's the wife of Robert Mitchell, who worked in the timber industry around Darby for more than 30 years.
He was Darby Lumber's maintenance supervisor. Hard work and almost a lifetime of experience had taken him up the company ladder. Now he earns less than half what he made at Darby Lumber. He's the shipping and warehouse manager at Perma-Chink Systems in Victor, which provides chinking material for the log home industry.
"We just barely get by is what it amounts to," Robert Mitchell says. "It would be difficult if we still had the kids at home."
The mill closure, Mitchell says, has reached beyond Darby Lumber's employees. Local grocery stores, retail shops, hardware dealers and tradesmen all feel the pinch, he says.
"People that used to buy steaks are now buying hamburger," he says.
The Mitchells know longstanding Darby families who have moved away to search for work since the mill closed. They know many of the former Darby Lumber workers who stayed are struggling, living hand-to-mouth.
"We do see people moving away, and you get a whole different class of people moving in," Norma Mitchell says.
Just a few blocks west of the Mitchells' quiet neighborhood is downtown Darby. Locals gather at the Sawmill Saloon, a rustic pub where old chain saws hang from the ceiling and tools of the timber trade are prominently displayed on the rough-cut, slab-wood walls. Old photos show loggers and huge trees larger than anything growing in the surrounding forest today.
Not as much beer flows at the Sawmill since Darby Lumber shut down. Saloon owner Gary Steinman says the slowdown in his business is noticeable. The reason is obvious to Steinman.
"There's no woods work at all," he says. "The forest isn't selling any significant timber."
Steinman, who worked as a forester for 15 years on the Bitterroot National Forest before buying the saloon over a year ago, says the Forest Service should go back to cutting more timber and managing the forest for commercial use.
"What we're not doing is quite a crime," he says. "The timber supply is there and not being used. The mill closure is a symptom of a lack of (forest) management."
A few of Steinman's customers found new jobs nearby in the log home industry.
"Others are unemployed or have left the valley," he says.
When Darby Lumber's doors closed, new doors opened for a small group of former employees with dreams of attending college. Displaced workers may receive tuition and support money for up to two years under the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Act.
Sharon Childress is one of six former employees who took advantage of that opportunity. Her choice has proved challenging.
"It's been tough," says Childress, a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter.
Childress drives 170 miles round trip from her home near Conner to the University of Montana, where she's studying for a bachelor's degree in applied sciences, with a specialty in labor relations and arbitration mediation.
The honor-roll student now has three semesters behind her. Her classes start as early as 8:30 a.m. and run as late as 9:30 p.m. It means spending a lot of time away from her daughter, Ashley.
"She tries real hard to understand," Childress says.
It's one of many sacrifices the pair has made since the mill closed.
Childress gets $700 a month as part of the federal program to put toward bills and support Ashley while attending school full time. She chose school, she says, because it was an old ambition and the Bitterroot Valley lacks decent-paying jobs.
"You can't support a family on $6 per hour," she says.
At People's market, Darby's only large grocery store, owner Terry Bergen says business slowed when the mill closed.
"You just can't eliminate 100 jobs and not have an impact on the community," he says. Partly offsetting the losses, however, is an influx of newcomers.
"We're fortunate to be in an area where the baby boomers are buying homes and doing things that employ people," he says.
Former millworkers who'd paid off their mortgages when Darby Lumber closed are managing to survive, he says. They've taken different jobs that pay less, but they are still living in the valley.
"The young with houses (mortgages) . . . they are gone," Bergen says.
Darby -- where many shops still display "We Support the Timber Industry" signs in their windows -- may never be the same.
"We've been transitioning a long time," says Forest Hayes, mayor of the town of 900 with an outlying population of nearly 5,000.
While the loss of Darby Lumber hurts, Hayes says the town will survive. Much of the population now works in jobs unrelated to the timber industry.
A diversified economy will be the key to the town's future, he says.
"The more legs we can get under this economic stool, the more stable it will be," he says. "When Darby was just in wood products, we were a one-legged stool."