The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-24

plants are separate enterprises which dispose of their product to all the pa- per mills. Thousands of carloads of wod pulp woods are cut in the north ern forests each winter, and large rafts brought over the lakes from Canada each season and loaded on the cars at Green Bay for distribution to the mills
 The paper industry is confined to two principal regions, the Fox river valley and the Wisconsin, though there are large mills on the Wolf at Shawano on the Oconto at Oconto. Falls and some on the Menominee riv- CT at Marinette, and at Niagara. At the latter place there is a fall of 72 feet at the natural fall, and immense mills The Fox river valley mills were the beginning of the industry in the West, and are the finest mills, making the highest grade of paper. A long time ago Capt. Richmond had a straw mill at the lower dam at Ap- pleton, but the real beginning of the busineess was at Neenah, when Dr. Robinson and others rented the old red sawmill of Henry Sherry and made it over into paper mill and got rich quick Then former Congress man Charles Clark had laid up $4,O00 from the war and borrowed $1O,O0O more, and with J. A. Kimberly, F. A. Shattuck and Havilla Babcock, each put in $14,000, and the beginning was made. This was a quarter of a cen tury ago. They are now the largest producers of paper in the world and the starters of all the rest. Their main office is at Neenah, but their mills are everywhere down the river and at Niagara. Col Harry Frambach came over to Menasha broke, twenty lyears ago, and rented the old red straw mill, and within a year return ed to Kaugauna with a few thousands ito begin this career, Some time af- ter he took check for $150,000 for his interest in one of the mills, George 1 A. Whiting was working behind a machine a few years ago. and now has three of the finest paper mills in Wisconsin, and lives in a stone palace,
 Thilmany came over and made a fortune out of orange wrappers and returned few years ago to build a castle on the Rhine. MT, Patten gath cred his funds out of pine lands and put it into paper mills He used to say any fool could make money in paper, and though he made abundant he was far from being that New mills are being built constantly in the Fox river valley, and it will al- ways be the most prominent center of the industry, vet the Wisconsin river will be great rival with it's hundred water powers now being. taken up fer paper mills. dam has recently been built near Merrill 75 feet high, the largest in the world, for paper and pulp mills,
 It costs time and money to erect a mill and install it's intricate and com pllcated machinery The mill at Rhinelander cost three-quarters of a million dollars. The mill at Depere was sold for 1-4 million dollars. One 
 $S00,000. Some of the mills have cost upward of 1-2 million dollars.
 All the mills run night and day, a a ceaseless hum from Monday morn ing to Sunday morning, working two shifts. Men, boys and girls work in the mills, They are paid good wages, from $1.50 for common labor to $4 for machine, and some superintend- ents get from $S,0O0 to $10,000 a year salary
 Wisconsin has as many paper and pulp mills at Massachusetts or Penn sylvania, and New York is the only State which has more mills than Wis consin, which is rated second in America, The widest machine is at Niagara 156 inches wide, and the largest produc is at Nokoosa, where 160, 900 pounds of prin and manila are made daily. There are at present plans being made and mills erected which will require upward of $4,00O,-
 900 to complete The reason of the
 existence of the paper industry in Wis
 consin is its clear water, its abundant hvdraulic power and close proximity to the forests which produce tho
 woods requirerd for paper. The indus
 try has a great future, as the mill: are no dependent for success upor
 term of he forest, as when the woot lis exhausted all the waste material ol the world is just as accessible to these
 mills as any other.-Milwaukee Senti, Incl,