Turners Falls Paper Company

(Adapted from “Picturesque Franklin” , Wade, Warner & Co. , Northampton MA 1891
This publication was a “snap shot” of Franklin County businesses and industries as of 1891. This original article will not include the history which occurred afterwards, unless noted by the museum editor.)

It is to be regretted that the very handsome engraving at the head of this page does not show the buildings of the Turners Falls paper company with all the improvements made since the photograph was taken. As a matter of fact, imposing as the mill building appears in the picture, the additions made, and nearly completed, which do not show therein, add very much to its appearance and much enlarge its capacity for work. Besides the buildings showing in the above engraving is an addition 40×40 feet, used by the beating engines, and-another building begun the present year

and now practically completed, 37×75, to be used for finishing and repairs.

The mill, of brick, is celebrated for its finely-built walls, iron and cement floors, fire-proof tower and generally well-arranged departments, being thoroughly constructed and of the newer type of architecture. It is divided into a machine room 108×40, engine room 73×40 and pulp mill 86×40, besides the additions already mentioned.

The outfit is first-class and includes, besides all other requisite accessories, two 1,200-pound washers, and two 500-pound beating engines, two Gould engines and one Jordan engine, both of great capacity, and one 84-inch Fourdrinier paper machine, the whole driven by 1000 horse water-power. From sixty to seventy hands are employed, and the output, of superior newspaper only, averages 16,000 pounds every working day. These papers are sold to the large dailies in New York and Chicago, and have a superior reputation in the market.

The Turners Falls paper company was incorporated in 1879, with a capital of $120,000. B. N. Farren is president and Willard E. Everett is treasurer.