Description
The Machine shop work crew of 19 workers standing outside the S.D. Warren mill in 1883.
S. D. Warren purchased the Westbrook paper mill in 1854. At the time, the mill ran two paper machines and had a production output of about 3,000 pounds of paper per day. Nine years later, in 1863, the addition of a third machine increased production to 11,000 pounds of paper per day.
In 1867, Warren began to add wood fibers with rags fibers for paper pulp, making his the first mill in the United States to do so. This drastically increased production and by 1880 the mill was producing 35,000 pounds of paper per day.
After Warren’s death in 1888, the mill continued to grow through the 20th century, employing close to 3,000 Westbrook residents. However in 1995 SAPPI Limited, a paper company based in South Africa, purchased the mill and outsourced most of the work in the mill to South Africa. As of 2013, the mill now only employs about 300 people but continues to be a presence in the city of Westbrook.
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