03/20/2024
Documenting History!!!
From the early morning work days to the late hours of the night employing thousands of people over the last 150 years one of the staples of Roaring Spring, Pa shut down In spring 2021, The closing of the mill, which employed 293 when it went out of business, has accelerated that thinning out of locally employed people. Now it is under demolition.
After moving to Spang’s Mill from Sinking Valley, company founder, Daniel Mathias Bare, along with John Eby and John Morrison, begin construction on a paper mill in the summer of 1865. Operations started just under a year later, but a disastrous boiler explosion and fire caused the mill to be rebuilt. Paper production resumes in the spring of 1867.
A year later, the town name changed from Spang’s Mill to Roaring Spring. These humble beginnings are the foundation for the industry that was to become Roaring Spring Blank Book began. By mid-1887, the first product under the company’s new name is completed; however, in September of that same year, a neighboring fire spread, destroying the rebuilt plant and machinery.
The year 1888 saw a new, two-story brick structure erected and paper production recommenced. With continued growth, by 1900 a new three-story native limestone structure is built to house the growing paper business at Roaring Spring Blank Book Company. When company founder, D.M. Bare, passed away in 1925.
Appvion was the latest of several companies that have owned and operated the mill, which produces hundreds of different grades of papers, including colored, high-speed inkjet, security and archival papers. The plant processed woodchips and logs to produce the “pulp” needed to make paper products on site. To the Area residents the old paper mill will now be a long lost piece of history.
History was taken from multiple sources!
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