Natchez-Adams County’s economy has had some bad news lately.

The Natchez Eola Hotel has been purchased, but plans for its development seem uncertain and the building’s upper floors inexplicably remain open to the elements.

The Eola’s future is simply unknown.

Down the bluff, Natchez’s inaugural casino will close after approximately 22 years of operation, taking with it approximately 200 jobs as well.

But the news isn’t all negative, some of the great news just happens quietly without much notice.

For many months now a small army of workers have been expanding the former Mississippi River Corporation plant, now owned by the von Drehle Corporation.

Von Drehle’s project is no minor improvement. The company is working to add paper-manufacturing capabilities to the existing paper-recycling operation.

The company has committed $100 million to the expansion project.

That’s an enormous amount of money.

To put it in perspective, imagine that von Drehle planned to pay for the work using single, $1 bills.

Now imagine — set gravity and wind aside for a minute — that they could stack all of those dollars up, one on top of another.

By the time they stopped with bill No. 100,000,000, the stack would measure some 35,000 feet into the sky — approximately the height commercial jets fly.

That’s a staggering amount of money and one for which our community needs to be truly grateful to the von Drehle company. We’re delighted they have chosen Natchez as a manufacturing facility and thrilled the company is investing so heavily in our community’s future.