St. Regis Papermill

St. Regis Papermill


Investors decided in December of 1901 to build the mill, with the hope of high profit possible due to the high cost of was newsprint at the time. Plans were drawn up in March of '01 and construction began on June 9th of 1902.

When finished it was, at the time, the largest mill in the area and was built to be the most modern papermill in the US. The walls were made of concrete, of which very few other buildings at the time were constructed of.

The mill's daily production capacity was thirty tons of Manila paper and twenty-five tons of wood pulp, but it only needed to employ about seventy-five people (being paid $100 a day).

A canal was built to divert water from the dam to the mill to counter low water levels during the summers, a significant engineering feat at the time.

After sixteen years the company was bought out by an Ohio company and production was dropped to twenty-five tons a day, but the company invested heavily in the mill and the village of Deferiet. By 1922 the village was company-owned with fifteen hundred residents living in company-owned houses, but in the 60's the company sold the houses.

The mill is now being demolished.

The St. Regis Paper Mill being demolished (see link below for more pictures)