Paper Making Returns to Chillicothe Mill as Data-Center Fight Continues

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CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — A year after the old Pixelle mill went quiet, the new owners say paper is coming off the machines again.

U.S. Paper Mill Company said this week it is hiring for production and has assigned a crew to revive Machine 12, known on the floor as The Chief. Officials said they intend to look first at former mill workers among the roughly 800 people who lost jobs when the plant closed in 2025.

Papermaking has been part of Chillicothe’s identity for more than two centuries. When the last large mill shut down, civic leaders called it the end of a 215-year run. A restart, even a partial one, is the first hard sign that some of that industrial muscle is not gone for good.

The same campus is also at the center of a separate fight. Alignment Engine has floated a “data hall” on the Chilpaco Innovation Campus. City Council first passed a 60-day moratorium on data centers, then voted 8-1 in mid-September to lift it after a February letter from the city surfaced. That letter said Chillicothe’s Unified Development Code did not block a data center on the property.

Mayor Luke Feeney has said the code was written over 19 months and never really dealt with data centers. Residents organized as Appalachians Against Data Centers have pressed council on water, power, and who gets to decide.

For now the city has two stories on one piece of ground: paper jobs trying to come back, and a server hall that has not filed a formal application. Council, the Planning Commission, and the company will have to keep those tracks from colliding.

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