Abstract
What happens to a company town when the company leaves? This is the central question informing my public humanities project, Company Town Legacy, which focuses on the rural northern Idaho town of Potlatch, once home to the world’s largest white pine mill until the mill closed permanently in 1981 (Kelly-Riley). Company Town Legacy is a university and community partnership that reflects on the legacy of corporate influence and the challenges of economic revitalization, renewal, and restoration in the rural American west. The American west is romanticized and mythologized, but the reality of life in these rural areas is often overlooked or misunderstood.