A storage facility at the East Millinocket paper mill sits empty in July. The mill was idled in January, only to be followed by layoffs in February. Workers had hoped it would reopen.

The Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket was operating in November 1989.

Two millworkers' sons, Jason Anthony Ross, 6, left, and Ryan Paul Leet, 7, walk home from Granite School in Millinocket in September 1987. Ryan's father worked at the East Millinocket mill, while Jason's father worked at the Great Northern Paper Co. in the background.

The Great Northern Paper Company's latest newsprint machine at East Millinocket in 1954 was described as "the most modern and fastest-running newsprint-making machine in the world." The machine went into commercial production in November of that year. It could operate at a top speed of at least 2,500 feet a minute, making a roll of newsprint 256 inches wide, according to specifications, or at least 500 feet a minute faster than any other newsprint machine in operation in the world at the time.

Tom James, the paper room superintendent, works at the Great Northern Paper mill in Millinocket in September 1986.

Workers are shown at the paper mill when it was named Great Northern Nekoosa Corp. in July 1990.

The #11 Paper Machine is shown at the Great Northern Paper mill in Millinocket in September 1986.

Great Northern Paper, whose East Millinocket mill is shown in 1990, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Tuesday.