Bradner Smith & Company

Bradner Smith & Company was a US paper manufacturer and dealer. It was established in Chicago, Illinois in 1853. In 2013, it was announced that Central National-Gottesman had acquired the assets and business of Bradner Central Company which operated Brander Smith.

The firm of Bradner Smith & Co., manufacturers and dealers in paper, was established in 1853 at No. 12 LaSalle Street in a 20 by 60 feet (6.1 m × 18.3 m) store. It became one of the largest paper firms in the world, doing a business of US$2,000,000 a year. The firm had three establishments in the city of Chicago, branch houses at Kansas City, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Saint Paul, Minnesota. It operated six paper mills, manufacturing and selling every sort and size of news, book, wrapping, writing, blotting, and other papers, card board, envelopes, twines, wood pulp, and paper manufacturers' supplies.

There was very little paper manufactured in the West when Bradner Smith & Co. commenced business, and most of their stock was brought from East Coast mills. The company was able to make their own stock, and to supply hundreds of other houses with their manufactures, shipping paper by the trainload from their several mills. Bradner Smith & Co. commenced manufacturing in 1854 at Rockton, Illinois. Its purchased a Winnebago mill, which manufactured ten tons per day of express, manills, rag, and straw wrapping paper. Their other manufactories were the Ledyard Pulp Mill, at Ledyard, Wisconsin, which made four tons of dry pulp per day; the Rozet Mill, at Three Rivers, which produced four tons per day of print and book paper; the Tippecanoe Paper Mill, at Monticello, Indiana. which made two tons of print paper daily, the Marinette Mill, at the place of the same name in Wisconsin, manufactured five tons of print paper, and the mill at Menominee, Michigan, which produced four tons of manilla paper and six tons of wood pulp daily.

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