Great Northern Paper Company
 |
|
Great Northern Paper Company mill in Millinocket, Maine, 1907
|
|
|
Formerly called
|
Northern Development Company |
|---|---|
| Private | |
| Industry | Pulp and Paper Mill |
| Founded | 1897 in Millinocket, Penobscot County, Maine, USA |
| Founders | Charles W. Mullen and Garret Schenck |
| Defunct | August 2014 |
|
Area served
|
Many US States |
| Products | Paper |
Great Northern Paper Company was a Maine-based pulp and paper manufacturer that at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s operated mills in Georgia, Maine, and Wisconsin and produced 16.4 percent of the newsprint made in the United States.
The company was acquired by Georgia-Pacific Corporation in 1990. Its name was revived in 2011 when private equity firm Cate Street Capital acquired Great Northern's original Maine mills.
The company got its start when the Maine legislature authorized Charles W. Mullen to form a water power company on the West Branch Penobscot River. Mullen in turn worked with Garret Schenck, part owner of the Rumford Falls Paper Company, to build a paper mill in Millinocket, Penobscot County, Maine on the river. Schenck formed the Northern Development Company in 1897.
The Millinocket plant opened in 1900. A second mill in Madison opened in 1906. A third one opened in East Millinocket in 1907, which also had its own dam and hyrdoelectric facility. Financiers of the corporation included Oliver Payne and William Collins Whitney.
When the Millinocket Mill opened it was the world's largest paper mill, producing 240 tons/day of newsprint, 120 tons/day of sulfite pulp, and 240 tons/day of ground wood pulp.
In the 1910s it built the Ripogenus Dam and powerplant on the West Branch Penobscot River.
In 1930 the company sold 6,000 acres (24 km2) around Maine's highest point Mount Katahdin for $25,000 to former Maine Governor Percival Proctor Baxter. In turn Baxter donated the land to the state, for what became the present day Baxter State Park.
...
Wikipedia