Forest Paper Company was a

pulp and paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...

on the

Royal River Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

Yarmouth, Maine Yarmouth is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, twelve miles north of the state's largest city, Portland. When originally settled in 1636, as North Yarmouth, it was part of Massachusetts, and remained as such for 213 years. In 1849, ...

, United States, which was in business between 1874 and 1923. It was the first of its kind in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. In 1909, it was the largest such mill in the world, employing 275 people. It produced 80 tons of poplar pulp each day.

History

Located at the Third Falls, the most industrious of Yarmouth's four waterfalls, Forest Paper Company occupied a building constructed in 1872 by its predecessor, the Yarmouth Paper Company, owned by H. M. Clark, Home F. Locke and Henry Furbush."Yarmouth: Leader in Soda Pulp"
– Maine Memory The rights to that business were purchased by Samuel Dennis Warren, owner of

S. D. Warren Paper Mill The S. D. Warren Paper Mill is a paper mill on the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, Maine. It is now owned by SAPPI Limited, a South African paper concern. It is one of Westbrook's major employers. The mill complex and former worker and managem ...

in Cumberland Mills, Maine, and his nephew

George W. Hammond George Warren Hammond (April 4, 1833 – January 6, 1908) was an American businessman. Camp Hammond, in Yarmouth, Maine, is named for him. He was also one of its architects. Built in , it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in ...

. They changed its name to the Forest Paper Company. Beginning with a single wooden building, the facility expanded to ten buildings covering as many

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s, including a span over the river to Factory Island. The main access road to it was an extended version of today's Mill Street, off Main Street. Two bridges to it were also constructed. In 1909, it was the largest such mill in the world, employing 275 people, including superintendent Frederic Gore."Forest Paper Company at Third Falls"
– Yarmouth Historical Society via Vamonde.com The mill used of poplar each year, which meant mounds of logs were constantly in view beside Mill Street. Six railroad spurs extended from the tracks running behind Main Street to the Forest Paper Company, traversing today's

Royal River Park Royal River Park is an urban park in Yarmouth, Maine, United States. It is located to the northwest of the town center, between East Elm Street to the west and Bridge Street to the east. U.S. Route 1 runs through the park via an overpass. The ...

. Rail cars delivered logs,

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

, soda and

chlorine Chlorine is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cl and atomic number 17. The second-lightest of the halogens, it appears between fluorine and bromine in the periodic table and its properties are mostly intermediate betwee ...

to the mill and carried pulp away. Changes in papermaking after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

made the mill less profitable, and it began to decline. Its workers unionized in August 1916 and went on strike the following month. Many never returned.''Yarmouth Historic Context Statement'', page 5
– Town of Yarmouth The mill closed in 1923, when

import An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited ...

restrictions on pulp were lifted and Swedish pulp became a cheaper option. The mill burned in 1931, leaving charred remains on the site until the development of the park in the early 1980s. In 1971, the

Marine Corps Reserve The Marine Forces Reserve (MARFORRES or MFR), also known as the United States Marine Corps Reserve (USMCR) and the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve, is the reserve force of the United States Marine Corps. It is the largest command, by assigned pe ...

tore down the old factory, before a

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

demolition team used fourteen cases of

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germa ...

to raze the remains. Most of the remaining debris was crushed and used as fill for the park but several remnants of the building are still visible today.''Images of America: Yarmouth'', Hall, Alan M., Arcadia (2002)

Visual timeline

File:Forest Paper Company, Yarmouth ME.jpg, Forest Paper Company (left) and George W. Hammond's Camp Hammond (right) File:Forest Paper Company 2, Yarmouth ME.jpg, Looking northwest to Elm Street File:Third Falls.jpeg, Remnants of mill foundations at the Third Falls

References

{{coord, 43.8046, -70.1885, region:US_type:landmark, display=title Pulp and paper mills in the United States Industrial buildings and structures in Maine Commercial buildings in Yarmouth, Maine Industrial buildings completed in 1872 1874 establishments in Maine 1923 disestablishments in Maine

History

Visual timeline

See also

References