After 87 years, a family-run cannery says it cannot afford another one. The town is trying to find a way to keep it open.
The whistle that marks the start of the shift is the same one that has blown at 6 a.m. every working day since 1937. This season, the owners say, it may blow for the last time.
Rising costs and falling catches have made the cannery unprofitable. The family that runs it has asked the town for help, and a group of residents has begun raising money to buy it as a cooperative.
“It’s not just a business,” said one of the 63 workers. “It’s the reason there’s a town.”
When the last paper in Marlow County folded, a retired printer, a school librarian and two hundred neighbours decided to start another. This is how they did it, and what it cost.
A new generation of plants can recover nearly all the metals in a spent battery. The bottleneck is no longer technology; it is collection.
The big cities grabbed the headlines. The sharpest increases are happening in places with populations under 400,000.
Hundreds of small, reader-funded newsrooms have launched in five years. A new survey shows what they have in common, and what keeps them alive.
