Willamette Falls Paper Company

Last updated

Willamette Falls Paper Company
Willamette Falls Paper Company
Location West Linn, Oregon, U.S.
Coordinates 45°21′23″N122°36′56″W / 45.3563°N 122.6155°W / 45.3563; -122.6155
Industry Pulp and paper industry
Address4800 Mill Street
Website www.wfpaperco.com

The Willamette Falls Paper Company (formerly the West Linn Paper Company) is an American paper manufacturing company with a paper mill located just above the Willamette Falls on the northwest bank of the Willamette River, in the city of West Linn, Oregon. It sits across the river from the site of the defunct Blue Heron Paper Company in Oregon City.

Contents

History

The Willamette Falls have been home to several paper mills, beginning with a mill in Oregon City in 1866. The Willamette Falls Pulp and Paper Company opened on the West Linn side in 1889. [1] It employed up to 1,600 people at the peak of its operations, and historians credit the mill with fueling regional publishing and supplying paper for publications across the U.S. [2] The ownership of the West Linn mill changed several times; it was owned by Crown Zellerbach until late 1985, James River until 1990, [3] [4] and Simpson until 1996, when its closure idled nearly 400 employees. [5] [6] The mill reopened in 1997 as the West Linn Paper Company. [1]

After two decades, the West Linn Paper Company announced it was shutting down in October 2017 due to an unexpected shortage of pulp supply. [2] [7] The mill reopened in November 2019 as Willamette Falls Paper Company with 97 of its previous employees, [8] [9] after a "multimillion dollar bet" from investor Ken Peterson's Columbia Ventures, who intends to demonstrate the viability of making paper using wheat farmers' waste straw instead of wood pulp. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon City, Oregon</span> City in Oregon, United States

Oregon City is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon, United States, located on the Willamette River near the southern limits of the Portland metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 37,572. Established in 1829 by the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1844 it became the first U.S. city west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willamette River</span> 187-mile Columbia River tributary in northwest Oregon, US

The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Linn, Oregon</span> City in Oregon, United States

West Linn is a city in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A southern suburb within the Portland metropolitan area, West Linn developed on the site of the former Linn City, which was named after U.S. Senator Lewis F. Linn of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, who had advocated the American occupation of the Oregon territory as a counterclaim to the British.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lebanon, Oregon</span> City in Oregon, United States

Lebanon is a city in Linn County, Oregon, United States. Lebanon is located in northwest Oregon, southeast of Salem. The population was 19,690 at the 2020 census. Lebanon sits beside the South Santiam River on the eastern edge of the Willamette Valley, close to the Cascade Range and a 25-minute drive to either of the larger cities of Corvallis and Albany. Lebanon is known for its foot-and-bike trails, its waterside parks, and its small-town character.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilsonville, Oregon</span> City in Oregon, United States

Wilsonville is a city primarily in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A portion of the northern section of the city is in Washington County. It was founded as Boones Landing because of the Boones Ferry which crossed the Willamette River at the location; the community became Wilsonville in 1880. The city was incorporated in 1969 with a population of approximately 1,000. The population was 13,991 at the 2000 census, and grew to 19,509 as of 2010. Slightly more than 90% of residents at the 2000 census were white, with Hispanics comprising the largest minority group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oregon City Bridge</span> Bridge in Oregon, United States

The Oregon City Bridge, also known as the Arch Bridge, is a steel through arch bridge spanning the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, United States. Completed in 1922, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built and is owned by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) as part of Oregon Route 43 and is the third-southernmost Willamette bridge in the Portland metropolitan area, after the Boone Bridge in Wilsonville and the Oregon 219 bridge near Newberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willamette Falls</span> Waterfall on the Willamette River in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States

The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall in the northwestern United States, located on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon. The largest waterfall in the Northwest U.S. by volume, it is the seventeenth widest in the world. Horseshoe in shape, it is 1,500 feet (455 m) wide and forty feet (12 m) high, with a flow rate of 30,850 cu ft/s (874 m3/s). Located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette's mouth at Portland. Willamette Falls is a culturally significant site for many tribal communities in the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Oregon and Pacific Railroad</span> Railroad operating between California and Oregon

The Central Oregon & Pacific Railroad is a Class II railroad operating between Northern California and Eugene, Oregon, United States. It was previously a mainline owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) between Eugene and Weed, California via Medford, Oregon. SP sold the route on December 31, 1994, in favor of using its route to Eugene via Klamath Falls, Oregon and Cascade Summit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catalyst Paper</span> Canadian pulp and paper company

Catalyst Paper Corporation is a pulp and paper company based in Richmond, British Columbia. It operates five pulp mills and paper mills, producing a combined 1.8 million tonnes of paper and 491,000 tonnes of market pulp annually. The mills mostly produce magazine paper and newsprint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willamette Falls Locks</span> United States historic place

The Willamette Falls Locks are a lock system on the Willamette River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 1873 and closed since 2011, they allowed boat traffic on the Willamette to navigate beyond Willamette Falls and the T.W. Sullivan Dam. Since their closure in 2011, the locks have been classified to be in a "non-operational status." In 2023, work began to repair the locks, which are expected to reopen in 2026.

The town of Willamette, Oregon was incorporated on October 5, 1908, and is located directly West across the Willamette River from Oregon City, Oregon and upstream from the Willamette Falls.

The Pamplin Media Group (PMG) is a media conglomerate owned by Carpenter Media Group and operating primarily in the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr. founded the company in 2001 and sold it to Carpenter in 2024. As of 2019, the company owns 25 newspapers and employs 200 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James D. Miller</span> American steamboat captain (1830–1914)

James D. Miller (1830-1914) was a steamboat captain in the Pacific Northwest from 1851 to 1903. He became well known for his long length of service, the large number of vessels he commanded, and the many different geographical areas in which he served.

The Simpson Investment Company is a company based in McCleary, Washington in the US Pacific Northwest that specializes in manufacture of forest products. Founded as a logging company in 1890 by Sol Simpson, the company now functions as a holding company for the Simpson Door Company, a manufacturer of wood doors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crown Zellerbach</span> Defunct American pulp and paper conglomerate

Crown Zellerbach was an American pulp and paper conglomerate based in San Francisco, California, purchased in a hostile takeover in 1985. Most of its pulp and paper assets were sold to James River Corporation, now part of Georgia-Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RingSide Steakhouse</span> Restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

RingSide Steakhouse is a restaurant located in Portland, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Northern Paper Company</span>

Great Northern Paper Company was a Maine-based pulp and paper manufacturer that at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s operated mills in Arkansas, Georgia, Maine, and Wisconsin and produced 16.4% of the newsprint made in the United States. It was also one of the largest landowners in the state of Maine.

<i>Wenat</i> (sternwheeler)

Wenat was a stern-wheel steamboat that, under the name Swan, was built and operated, briefly, on the Tualatin River, in the state of Oregon. In 1858, Swan was sold, moved to the lower Willamette River, renamed Cowlitz, and placed on a route between Portland, Oregon the Cowlitz River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Heron Paper Company</span> Defunct paper mill in Oregon City, Oregon, U.S.

The Blue Heron Paper Company was a paper mill at Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon, on the southeast bank of the river across from the Willamette Falls Paper Company, the T.W. Sullivan hydroelectric plant, and the Willamette Falls Locks and canal.

The Androscoggin Mill is a pulp and paper mill in Jay, Maine. At its peak, 1,500 workers were employed in the facility. In February 2023, management announced that the mill would permanently close in March 2023.

References

  1. 1 2 "Paper Making in West Linn". West Linn Historical Society. Retrieved January 20, 2024.
  2. 1 2 Mike Rogoway The (October 18, 2017). "West Linn Paper will shut mill after 128 years". OregonLive . Retrieved April 13, 2022.
  3. "Two Oregon plants being sold by James River". United Press International. August 17, 1990. Retrieved July 6, 2024.
  4. Robertson, Lance (August 18, 1990). "James River to sell 2 mills". Eugene Register-Guard . p. 14C via Google News.
  5. "Simpson Paper plans to close Evergreen Mill, idling 388". The Seattle Times . July 24, 1996. Retrieved July 7, 2024.
  6. "Oregon's oldest paper mill set to close in September". Lewiston Morning Tribune . Lewiston, Idaho. Associated Press. July 24, 1996. p. 1C via Google News.
  7. "End of an era: West Linn paper mill to close, after 128 years". Northwest Labor Press. October 31, 2017. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  8. "West Linn paper mill reopens, 120 employees hired". KGW. November 5, 2019. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  9. Mike Rogoway (November 4, 2019). "West Linn paper mill reopens as Willamette Falls Paper Co., with 125 employees". OregonLive. Retrieved April 13, 2022.
  10. Mike Rogoway (June 26, 2019). "West Linn paper mill to reopen this summer with new owner, 85 employees". OregonLive. Retrieved April 13, 2022.