A memorable paper mill visit

One day, a long time ago when I was very young, my father had to get something from his office¹ in the Hudson River Mill, Corinth NY one Saturday. Dad took me with him for some reason, perhaps just to give Mom a few hours off. Taking your child into an operating heavy-industrial setting would prompt a visit from Child Protective Services today, but this was back in the 1950s when kids could roll around in the back seat of a car sans seatbelts, with none to think twice about it.

Rather than going through the front entrance of the mill to his office, Dad drove down the hill and parked near the door leading past the then-new No. 11 Papermachine(1958-2002)². Walking through that door and past the large, noisy machine was a life-changing event. I knew I wanted to know how the thing worked. My fate was sealed (although I mostly ended up working on different parts of the papermaking process and never got involved with the paper coating process, Dad’s expertise).

I much later had college summer jobs involving Number 11 machine; specifically on a crew cleaning it up for an impending visit by the President of IP and his distinguished guests. The chief cleaning problem was removing chewing tobacco residue from around the I-beam columns supporting the machine. Smoking was not permitted near the machine, so the (almost universally tobacco-addicted) crews made up for the prohibition by chewing plug tobacco. Removing ten-plus years of hardened tobacco spit was hammer and chisel work, hot and noisy, too, as the papermachine was still running while we worked at removing the gunk.

The Number 11 Papermachine ³ at the Hudson River Mill of IP Co., Corinth NY