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WCU - Canton Champion Fibre Company

Mystery industry has Canton folk buzzing

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Mystery industry has Canton folk buzzing

HL_MSS94-05_04_20_02_a
wcu_canton-2501.jp2

Mystery industry has Canton folk buzzing

HL_MSS94-05_04_20_02_b
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Item’s are ‘child’ level descriptions to ‘parent’ objects, (e.g. one page of a whole book).

  • Industr —Continued From Page One Champion Coated Paper Co., which he had established in 1893 to turn out the first coated paper in America. Thomson came and looked around and was satisfied with what he saw, and then he sat down to discuss his plans with Canton's "Big Four" — Will Hampton, Squire Mease, Turner Sharp, and Charlie Wells. The first thing Thomson wanted to know was whether the town could be helpful in providing better streets and housing facilities for the workers who would be needed. The "Big Four" told him they sure would like to be helpful but that they were overwhelmed with debt and could not take on additional obligations. This debt, Thomson managed to learn, amounted to $500, which to the town folks back then was a staggering sum. Even though he failed to get a promise at the time that the town would try to make improvements, Thomson decided to build the mill. And it wasn't long until word spread that Canton was to have an industry. But fact and rumor got mixed up and folks didn't know just what to believe. The only thing they knew for sure was that a pulp mill was to be built here, but few of them knew what a pulp mill was sunoosed to do. The more knowing said these Yankees from Ohio were going to make paper by grinding up wood. The word went out they would grind up so much wood that folks would think a long time about using it for fuel or fence rails. Then a rumor sprang up that fumes from the mill would kill timber within a radius of 10 miles, and some said if they would kill timber it stood to reason they would kill folks, too. But in time the rumors abated, and in the soring of 1906 construction of the mill got under wav. The mill was constructed on bottom land, which Squire Mease ' ' sold to Thomson for $4,000. Some folks figured the squire pretty sharp, a lot sharper than the Yankees. Who but a Yankee, they said, would pay $200 an acre for soggy river land. Finally, in the fall of 1906, the mill was finished. Smoke rose from the towering chimney and drifted over the town and into the valley. Remembering the stories they had heard, some folks waited for the fumes to kill off uV trees and then got tired of waiting. It wasn't long until Canton was out of debt and out of the mud. In the years since, Champion Papers Inc. has been Canton's one major industry—the life- blood of the community. It has grown over the years, and with it has grown the town —from a struggling community of less than 200 to more than 5,000, prosperous and full of gumption and pride. But somehow other industry failed to come to the town which. dreamed and worked for it. That is—until now. And now a new industry is coming that will employ between 125 and 150 women. It's the talk of the town this week.
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Canton Champion Fibre Company

When it opened in 1908, the Champion Fibre Company was the largest pulp mill in the world. For 60 years it was under the leadership of Reuben "Mr. Champion" B. Robertson and was a...

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