Courtesy Photo This aerial photograph, from the Alpena County Library, was taken in either 1956 or 1957 and shows the construction of the former Abitibi plant in Alpena. The plant has been called DPI for years after being purchased by Decorative Panels International. On Thursday, the company announced it is closing the plant and more than 150 employees are losing their jobs.

ALPENA — In 1956, the Abitibi Power and Paper company, a Canadian business, reached out to government leaders expressing its interest in opening a plant in Alpena on the shores of Thunder Bay.

The mill, which now makes wallboard and other products, provided thousands of good-paying jobs in Northeast Michigan for decades, but on Thursday the plant, now named Decorative Panels International or DPI, announced it is closing the door and letting go of more than 150 employees.

The impact of the closure will be felt far and wide.

According to information in the special-collections archives at the Alpena County Library, in 1966 Abitibi worked with the Alpena Municipal Council to have the plant built.

The $10 million facility would provide more than $2 million in pay to local employees, which was a boon for the area at that time.

There were plenty of hoops to jump through before the plant became a reality, however.

Abitibi wanted to purchase the land where DPI is today, but it was owned by the city, which had gravel pits on the land.

But in order to sell the land to Abitibi, plans needed to be created, and a design for the plant needed to be drafted. Most importantly, the sale of the 72 acres of land needed to be approved by residents.

An election was held and the proposal to sell the land to the company and for the plant to be built passed with 3,384 people in favor of the property’s sale and only four votes against it.

The matter then moved on to the state level, as legislation needed to be passed to remove Alpena from the deed.

The project received great support in the state legislature which passed it with ease and the bill was signed by Governor Gerhard Mennen Williams.

Williams also visited Alpena after construction on the plant commenced.

Over the years, the plant exchanged hands several times, as Abitibi became Abitibi-Price, which sold the plant to become ABTco in 1993, then in turn sold it to Louisiana-Pacific Corporation in 1999.

The most recent name change was in 2004 when the facility was purchased by Decorative Panels International and is now known as Alpena Hardboard.

Over the decades the plant has had a bumpy relationship with residents, as odors caused by the production process were often common near and at times miles from the plant, depending on the direction of the wind.

The plant did its best to balance its relationship with the Alpena community and still be profitable, often updating equipment to reduce the smell and filter the emission from its stacks, but with everchanging and tighter regulations, the improvements were costly.

The plant was also a hotspot for fires. Nearly every year local firemen were called to the plant to help extinguish a fire. A fire suppression system was installed and employees were trained in firefighting techniques.