Mead Paper Company Chillicothe Works

The Mead Paper Company’s Chillicothe Works stood as one of Ohio’s most significant paper manufacturing facilities for more than a century.

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The Mead Paper Company’s Chillicothe Works stood as one of Ohio’s most significant paper manufacturing facilities for more than a century. Established in the mid-19th century and later coming under the Mead name, the mill became a cornerstone of Chillicothe’s economy, producing newsprint, coated papers, and specialty products. Its long history reflected the evolution of America’s paper industry from small-scale milling to modern industrial production.

History

Early Papermaking History

Papermaking was one of the earliest industries in Ross County, beginning in 1810 or 1812 when two Quaker brothers from Pennsylvania, Hezekiah and Isaiah Ingham, established a paper mill along Kinnikinnick Creek in the Scioto Valley on land leased from David Crouse. ^{1 2 6} The Inghams, early industrial pioneers from New England, operated the mill until 1820, when Crouse purchased the property and continued production until his death in 1837. ^{2 6}

Following his death, Crouse’s sons, Shepherd and Jeremiah, maintained operations. The brothers built a second paper mill on the former Worthington flour mill site, which remained in use until 1857, when the original mill was abandoned. ⁶ The second mill was sold to Matthew Lewis in 1860, and he operated it until the 1870s.

The demand for printing paper in the region was high, as Chillicothe—designated Ohio’s first capital in 1803—required a steady supply to support state government operations.

Chillicothe’s First Mill

In 1847, Entrekin, Green & Company established Chillicothe’s first paper mill on South Paint Street along Honey Creek, on the city’s south side. ^{2 3 6} The mill was powered by a water wheel driven by water from a dam on the Hydraulic Canal and produced coarse paper made from straw and rags. ² The dam was washed out in a flood in 1848, but was promptly rebuilt.

In 1849, a reorganized firm—Crouse, Entrekin & Company—purchased the mill and its entire stock for $9,000. ² The company included David Crouse and his cousin, John Entrekin. That same year, William Ingham joined the firm, ⁶ and on March 1, 1852, his brother James M. Ingham became a partner, after which the business operated as Ingham & Company. ^{1 2 6}

Flooding again destroyed the dam, and in 1858, the company replaced water power with steam at a cost of $7,000. ^{2 6}

After the Civil War, the mill became one of the first west of the Alleghenies to adopt the new process of making newspaper stock from wood pulp. ² This innovation, displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, was observed there by W. B. Mills, who implemented the process at the Chillicothe mill upon his return.

In 1876, Chillicothe banker William B. Mills joined the firm, which was then renamed Ingham Mills & Company. ²

The Mead Paper Company

Colonel Daniel E. Mead helped establish Ellis, Chaffin & Company in 1846 in Dayton to produce white paper. ^{6 21} The firm became Weston & Mead in 1856, Mead & Weston in 1861, and Mead & Nixon in 1866. ^{2 21} Mead became the sole owner in 1881 and renamed the business The Mead Paper Company. ^{6 21}

On December 6, 1890, Col. Daniel Mead of Dayton purchased Ingham Mills & Company. ^{1 2 6 21} At that time, the plant occupied one acre and employed approximately 60 workers. ^{2 21} Most of its production was devoted to newsprint, consuming about 1,500 cords of cottonwood annually.

After Col. Mead’s death on November 10, 1891, management of the company passed to his sons, Henry Eldridge Mead, a colonel in the Ohio National Guard, and Charles D. Mead. ^{2 21}

George Houk Mead, grandson of Daniel Mead, began his career as a tour worker on a paper machine after graduating from college in 1897. ²¹ He enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the following year and earned a degree in chemical engineering in 1900. Afterward, he worked for the Cellulose Products Company in Boston before returning to Mead, where he spent two years as a chemist, pulp mill foreman, and local manager. During that time, he established the plant’s first laboratory.

Mead later left to oversee the construction of a mill for the General Artificial Silk Company in Philadelphia, serving as general manager and treasurer once the facility was completed. ²¹ When the company was sold in 1905, he returned to Chillicothe and began restoring the mill, which had fallen into both mechanical and financial disrepair. ^{1 2 21}

To avoid bankruptcy, the company went public as The Mead Pulp & Paper Company, with George serving as general manager. ^{4 6} The Dayton mill was closed in 1907, and its equipment was relocated to Chillicothe. ^{1 4 6} George Mead became president of the company in 1912. ^{4 6 21}

The No. 4 paper machine was placed into operation in 1906, and in 1909, a new, modern 3,000 square-foot office building was constructed on Ninth Street to replace a Civil War–era 800 square-foot structure from Ingham & Company. ^{21 35} The No. 5 machine began operating in 1910, followed by the No. 3 machine in 1916. In 1920, a new two-story machine room was added, housing two 152-inch paper machines, Nos. 6 and 7. No. 6 began operation in February 1921, and No. 7 followed in May.

By 1925, Mead employed approximately 600 people, including 40 office staff. ²¹ That same year, ground was broken for a new 14,000 square-foot Main Office building at the corner of Paint and Ninth Streets to replace the 1909 structure, which opened in June. ³⁵ Another office structure was expanded during this period, and a new finishing room and machine room were constructed, ²¹ with a new Boiler House finished the following year. ³¹

In 1926, the new 160-inch No. 8 paper machine was placed into operation, followed by the No. 9 machine in 1929. ²¹ Equipment from the Peerless Paper Mill in Dayton, which the company had acquired in 1925 and closed in July 1928, ^{21 23} was relocated to Chillicothe that same year. ²¹ The Peerless No. 1 machine began operation in July, followed by No. 2 in August.

In 1930, the company was reorganized as The Mead Corporation, encompassing 14 divisions and subsidiaries engaged in the production of pulp, paperboard, and chestnut extract. ^{4 6 21} That same year, the No. 10 machine was placed into operation. ²¹ A new Research and Development laboratory was built in 1933 on South Paint Street, ¹⁰ and in 1936, the No. 11 paper machine was started up. ²¹

By 1946, The Mead Corporation had grown to a value of $47 million, employing 6,000 people across 16 plants in eight states. ² In Chillicothe, the company employed 1,900 workers and maintained an annual payroll of $4.25 million. It produced various grades of paper for books and magazines, as well as by-products such as tanning extract for leather manufacturing. The company also sold electric power and produced lignin, extracted from the spent caustic liquor used in processing wood chips.

Construction of a two-story addition at the rear of the Riley Building on Paint Street began in the fall of 1947 under E. J. Gerber. ²⁵ The addition was completed in May 1948 and provided space for the expanded Industrial Relations department and the consolidated Corporation engineering staff. It also included a central stenographic room, a small library, a conference room, and a photographic darkroom, and was later to accommodate the Plant Publications department.

A new triple-stage, 150-ton-capacity pulp bleaching plant, ³⁰ completed at the cost of $1 million, ³⁴ was placed into operation at the No. 2 Soda Pulp Mill on February 22, 1948. ^{30 34} Brown stock from the No. 1 Soda Pulp Mill was piped 2,000 feet to a storage tank ahead of the new bleaching plant, leading to the retirement of the Bellmer bleachers in the No. 1 Soda Pulp Mill. The new facility processed 100 tons per day and introduced a multi-stage bleaching process that preserved fiber strength, increased brightness, and allowed the use of various wood species. A new digester installed in the No. 2 Soda Pulp Mill further improved daily bleached pulp output to 115 tons and delivered higher-consistency pulp to the No. 2 and No. 3 Beater Rooms. These upgrades also required the addition of a new Water Softening Plant.

Fly ash collectors were added to the No. 2 Steam Plant between October and 1949, which helped reduce particulate pollution in the area. ^{12 20 32} A new recovery unit, utilizing the black liquor from the soda pulp process, was proposed, including a 1,200-horsepower boiler to produce steam at 900 lbs. pressure. ³²

Groundbreaking for a new Research & Development Building and an adjoining pilot plant for the Research, Development, and Corporation Technical departments took place on April 28, 1951, at the corner of Eighth Street and the proposed U.S. Route 23 alignment, opposite Knoles Avenue. ^{10 17} The building was designed by Lorenz and Williams of Dayton, with the pilot plant situated at the rear. Completed in 1952, the facility included offices, conference rooms, laboratories, technical libraries, showers, a photographic darkroom, and fireproof vaults. It replaced their undersized building along South Paint Street. ¹⁷

A new warehouse was constructed at the corner of Ninth and Madeira Streets between 1952 and 1953. ⁹

Planning for a new $6 million pulp mill began in 1949, culminating in the construction of a new evaporator and recovery furnace in 1952. ²² An 11-acre wood yard was also built, enabling mechanized wood handling and increasing soda pulp production from 70% of mill consumption to 100%. ¹⁹ This improvement eliminated the need to import brown soda pulp and reduced shipping and drying costs. The expanded wood yard also required a new Chip Storage Building, a new Digester Building, ²² additional water filtration and softening facilities, expanded bleaching operations, and new wells. ¹⁹

In May 1953, the Order Department was relocated to new offices near the Shipping and Cost Departments to improve efficiency. ¹⁶ The new offices included space for IBM machines capable of handling invoicing and order processing. The former offices at Paint and Ninth Streets were vacated.

By September, the Maxon Construction Company had begun work on a new reception and office building that connected Mead’s corporate offices (Main Office) with an adjacent office structure that housed division offices, providing a total of 54,600 square feet between the three buildings. ^{18 35} The new building featured a reception room on the first floor, four offices on the second floor, and a Sales Service photographic laboratory and offset printing press in the basement. Its exterior was finished with Indiana limestone. The Division Technical Service Building was also resurfaced with brick to match the Main Office. The project was designed by Lorenz & Williams of Dayton.

In 1954, the Chillicothe Paper Company, or Chilpaco, was incorporated into The Mead Corporation. ^{3 4 6} Its facility was located adjacent to Mead’s mill.

That June, a 216,000 square foot warehouse was completed at a cost of $1.5 million. ³³ In July, a $1.875 million No. 5 boiler was finished on the new No. 2 Steam Plant. ^{27 29} Built on the site of the Wagner Furnace of the old No. 2 Pulp Mill on Quality Street, the boiler could supply half of the mill’s total steam requirements, producing 250,000 pounds of steam per hour for the No. 1, 3, and 10 turbines, as well as for heating and paper drying. ²⁹ Three of the four boilers in the No. 1 Steam Plant were eventually retired and held in reserve for emergencies. The new boiler also allowed the three 400-pound boilers in the No. 2 Steam Plant to be taken offline for overhaul and repairs. It consumed seven railroad carloads of coal daily.

In November, work began on a new No. 9 Coater Building, located south of the No. 3 Finishing Room, to produce No Carbon Required (NCR) Paper. ²⁸ NCR Paper, considered revolutionary at the time, allowed multiple copies to be made without carbon paper. Its development followed more than 15 years of research, beginning when the National Cash Register Corporation requested Mead’s assistance in 1953. A pilot plant was established, leading to the construction of the No. 9 Coater Building, which was completed in the spring of 1955.

In 1956, Mead, which had produced magazine paper, lost one of its major clients, the Crowell-Collier Company, publisher of several leading national periodicals. ³ To offset the loss, Mead shifted the Chillicothe plant’s focus to producing coated and business papers.

In 1958, Mead expanded operations by building a new 240-foot by 120-foot warehouse near the corner of U.S. Route 23 and Ninth Street. ⁸ The project required closing Madeira Avenue at Ninth Street and all of Quality Street. The warehouse housed paper finishing and wrapping operations on the second floor and customer storage on the first floor.

At the same time, Mead built a new four-stage, 500-ton bleach plant adjacent to the Digester building and coal pile, replacing an older facility that was put on standby for a different process. ⁸ The new plant improved the quality and increased the production of soda pulp by washing the raw pulp between each of the four stages: chlorination, caustic extraction, calcium hypochlorite, and chlorine dioxide—a step the old plant did not include.

The company also completed construction of a new Tub Size Plant, a two-story brick building constructed over the railroad tracks. ¹¹ It demolished outdated pulp mill structures on South Paint Street to make way for a new color plant, replacing an older facility where color for conversion coating had been produced. ³⁶ This project allowed Mead to centralize material unloading and storage at the site. The complex included an electrical control station, a testing laboratory, and areas for bag, drum, and chemical storage. The color plant was built by the Maxon Construction Company and completed in early 1959.

In April 1961, the Research and Development Building was expanded to include 20 additional laboratories, 39 offices, and an enlarged pilot plant. ¹⁴ Around the same time, a new Water Softening Plant began operation on April 11. In May, a new brown stock washer was placed into service in a building adjoining the Digester Building and Bleach Plant.

By 1962, Mead’s Chillicothe Division employed 3,400 people with a payroll exceeding $22 million. The addition of the Chillicothe Paper Company brought total employment to 3,950 and increased the payroll to $26 million. ³

That same year, Mead proposed converting the plant’s soda pulp process to a modified alkaline or kraft pulp process. ³ Although the company had tested the kraft process earlier, previous concerns about odor were resolved with the installation of environmental control equipment. Mead cited the kraft process’s higher wood yield, improved paper strength, and reduced production cost. The transition to kraft pulp production was completed in 1963.

By that time, Mead’s total investment in the Chillicothe operation since 1945 amounted to $75 million. ³

The mill’s oldest and longest-running paper machine, No. 3, was shut down in February 1970. ²⁴ Having begun operation in 1916, it was the least productive machine at the plant, producing 18 tons per day, or approximately 2 percent of total production.

In the 1970s, Mead undertook a five-year, multi-billion-dollar expansion and modernization program for its paper machines in Chillicothe and Escanaba, Michigan. ^{4 6}

A union strike halted operations at the Chillicothe mill from August 12 to October 27, 1975. ¹

The company was affected by the economic recession of the 1980s, posting a loss of $86 million in 1982—its first in 44 years. ^{4 6}

By 1996, The Mead Paper Corporation had become an international enterprise with sales of $4.7 billion and a workforce of 21,000 employees. ¹

Merger with MeadWestvaco

After experiencing financial difficulties during the 1980s and early 1990s, The Mead Corporation regained stability and became a potential target for acquisition by larger corporations. ¹ It had earlier resisted a hostile takeover attempt by Occidental Petroleum in 1978.

To prevent a hostile takeover, Mead entered into a $3 billion stock merger with another mid-sized forest products company, Westvaco, in January 2002. ¹ At that time, Westvaco employed more than 15,000 people and reported $1.8 billion in sales in 1996. Its primary business interests were printing papers, packaging, and specialty chemicals.

The newly formed MeadWestvaco Corporation reported annual revenues of $8 billion and employed more than 32,000 people. ¹ Its operations centered on packaging, specialty papers, consumer and office products, and specialty chemicals. The company operated five printing paper mills: Mead’s facilities in Chillicothe, Ohio; Escanaba, Michigan; and Rumford, Maine; along with Westvaco’s mills in Luke, Maryland, and Wickliffe, Kentucky.

Sales to Private Equity Firms

In May 2005, MeadWestvaco sold its five printing mills and 900,000 acres of forestland to Cerberus Capital Management, a private investment firm, for $2.3 billion. ¹ The company chose to refocus its operations on packaging, consumer and office products, and specialty chemicals. Following the sale, the Chillicothe printing plant became part of NewPage Corporation, though the facility did not align with NewPage’s long-term business strategy.

In April 2006, the Chillicothe mill was sold to the P. H. Glatfelter Company of York, Pennsylvania. ¹ Glatfelter was a global producer of specialty papers and engineered products, operating mills in Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, and Neenah, Wisconsin, along with facilities in Germany, France, and the Philippines.

On Glatfelter’s first day of operations in Chillicothe, Chairman and CEO George H. Glatfelter II personally greeted employees as they entered the mill, welcoming them to the company. ¹ Later that day, during an employee meeting, Glatfelter remarked that the “Chillicothe mill was not on their radar; it was the radar.” Under Glatfelter’s ownership, book paper was added to the production mix, becoming a core product for the mill.

On October 31, 2018, Glatfelter announced the sale of its paper business to Lindsay Goldberg, a private investment firm. ^{1 6} The new company was rebranded as Pixelle Specialty Solutions, with operations in Chillicothe and Spring Grove. ¹ Pixelle became one of North America’s largest specialty paper producers, manufacturing food contact papers, inkjet paper, release liners, carbonless forms, envelopes, greeting cards, book paper, and playing cards. The company later acquired mills in Jay, Maine, and Stevens Point, Wisconsin, operating eleven paper machines and producing more than one million tons of paper annually.

On April 4, 2022, Lindsay Goldberg announced an agreement to sell Pixelle Specialty Solutions to H.I.G. Capital. ^{1 6} The company announced the planned closure of its Chillicothe plant on April 15, 2025. ^{5 6} Three days later, on April 18, Senator Bernie Moreno stated that the plant would remain open through the end of the year; however, that plan did not come to fruition. On August 10, 2025, Pixelle formally closed the Chillicothe mill, resulting in the loss of approximately 750 jobs.

The US Medical Glove Company acquired the former Pixelle Specialty Solutions paper mill in October. ⁷ The company is expected to hire 500 people and resume operations by late November.

Mead Corporation Rail Road

The Mead Corporation operated a private railroad that included 20 spurs and a total of seven miles of track. Known as the Mead Corporation Railroad (MCRR), it employed a dispatcher, a full train crew, and maintained eight railcars. ¹³

The company operated four locomotives: ¹³

• Engine No. 1 was a 52-ton saddle-tank steam locomotive used for yard work.
• Engine No. 2 was a gasoline-powered locomotive purchased in 1929, later used as a spare or during periods of heavy switching activity.
• Engine No. 3 was a 70-ton charged steam locomotive acquired in April 1937. It lacked a firebox and was supplied with steam from the plant’s boilers.
• Engine No. 4 was a 65-ton diesel-electric locomotive built by the General Electric Company and acquired in April 1946. It had two diesel engines, each producing 200 horsepower, which powered a generator supplying electricity to four 250-volt motors connected to the drive wheels.

The railroad’s rolling stock included a flatcar for moving heavy equipment, a boxcar for transferring stock between departments, and six high-sided chip cars for hauling pulpwood from the Chipper House to the No. 2 Pulp Mill. ¹³ A steam-powered crane was also in service.

The Norfolk & Western Railway (N&W) and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) interchanged with the paper mill, handling approximately 1,000 freight cars monthly. ²⁶ These cars typically carried finished paper, wood, pulp, clay, lime, soda ash, coal, waste paper, lumber, starch, and various chemicals and fillers.

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Papermaking Process

The Chillicothe Division of Mead obtained wood from suppliers in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. ¹⁵ After the bark was removed, the logs were reduced to chips approximately 5/8 inches long. In the digesters, the chips were mixed with chemicals and cooked under pressure to separate the wood fibers. This process continued in the Blow Tank, after which the stock was cleaned in the Brown Stock Washers.

Foreign materials were removed in the Screen Room before the stock was sent to the Bleach Plant, where it was bleached white. ¹⁵ Chemicals, coloring agents, and other additives were blended with the pulp in beaters. The stock underwent final screening in the selectifier machines before moving to the paper machines.

At this stage, the stock consisted of about 99% water as it flowed onto a rapidly moving bronze mesh known as the Fourdrinier wire. ¹⁵ The wire allowed the water to drain through, leaving the fibers on top to form an even web or sheet of paper.

The wet sheet then passed between rolls or presses to remove additional moisture and compress the fibers. ¹⁵ It was next conducted over large, steam-heated drying drums, after which the dried sheet was wound onto a reel and later rewound into smaller rolls.

Special coatings or finishes could be applied in the supercalenders or the Coating Department. ¹⁵ Paper intended for shipment was usually rewound into perfect rolls or sent to the Cutter Department to be cut to size.

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Gallery

Panorama

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Sources

1. Breeden, Tom. “A paper mill by any other name.” Chillicothe Gazette, 10 Aug. 2025, p. 3A.
2. “Vast Mead Industries Had Humble Beginnings.” Chillicothe Gazette, 19 Aug. 1946, p. 2-2.
3. “The Chillicothe Story–Progress and Problems.” Chillicothe Gazette, 8 Feb. 1962, p. 4.
4. “Company history.” Chillicothe Gazette, 19 Jan. 2005, p. 6A.
5. Reeves, Shelby, and Destiny Torres. “‘Twenty-six years and I get treated like this.'” Chillicothe Gazette, 10 Aug. 2025, p. 1A-2A.
6. “Timeline, history of events.” Chillicothe Gazette, 10 Aug. 2025, p. 1A-2A.
7. Landers, Kevin. “New owners of Chillicothe paper plant announced.” WBNS, 8 Oct. 2025.
8. “Mead Looks Ahead.” Mead Reporter, Feb. 1958, vol. XI, no. 2, pp. 2-5.
9. “Warehouse Completion Is Set For January 16.” Mead Reporter, Aug. 1953, vol. VI, no. 7, p. 5.
10. “Big Move.” Mead Reporter, Apr. 1953, vol. VI, no. 4, pp. 3-4.
11. “Mead draftsmen chart new projects.” Mead Reporter, Nov. 1958, vol. XI, no. 11, pp. 6-8.
12. “Fly Ash Collectors Now In Operation.” Mead Reporter, Jul. 1949, vol. II, no. 7, p. 9.
13. “Seven Mile Railroad.” Mead Reporter, Oct. 1949, vol. II, no. 10, pp. 3-5.
14. “A pioneer in Mead research retires.” Mead Reporter, May 1961, vol. XV, no. 5, pp- 12-14.
15. “The Papermaking Process in Brief.” Family Night Tours, Apr. 1961, p. 3.
16. “Order Moves To New Offices.” Mead Reporter, Jul. 1953, vol. VI, no. 7, pp. 4-5.
17. “New Laboratory Being Erected.” Mead Reporter, May 1952, vol. V, no. 5, p. 6.
18. “New Construction Under Way.” Mead Reporter, Nov. 1953, vol. VI, no. 11, p. 18.
19. “Mead’s Modern Wood Yard.” Mead Reporter, Nov. 1952, vol. V, no. 11, pp. 2-7.
20. “Ash Collectors.” Mead Reporter, 30 Oct. 1948, vol. 1, no. 20, p. 1.
21. “The Mead family arrives on the Chillicothe scene.” Mead Reporter, Jun. 1962, vol. XVI, no. 6, pp. 6-9.
22. “11 Acres of Expansion.” Mead Reporter, Sept. 1953, vol. VI, no. 9, pp. 2-5.
23. “Looking Back Over the Years.” Mead Reporter, 24 Jul. 1948, vol. 1, no. 13, p. 8.
24. “Number 3 Machine will shut down.” Mead Reporter, vol. XXIII, no. 12, p. 1.
25. “New Offices Completed.” Mead Reporter, 15 May 1948, vol. 1, no. 9, pp. 1-6.
26. “A Penny Saved.” Mead Reporter, Jul. 1954, vol. VII, no. 7, pp. 8-9.
27. “Mead People and Places.” Mead Reporter, Jul. 1954, vol. VII, no. 7, p. 11.
28. “Now going up: A new building.” Mead Reporter, Apr. 1955, vol. VIII, no. 4, pp. 6-7.
29. “New Number 5 Boiler. Mead Reporter, Apr. 1955, vol. VIII, no. 4, pp. 10-11.
30. “New Bleach Plant Handling 100 Tons of Pulp Per Day.” Mead Reporter, 3 Apr. 1948, vol. 1, no. 6, p. 7.
31. Augustus, Ernie. “Reviewing the Pages.” Mead Reporter, Apr. 1951, vol. IV, no. 4, p. 18.
32. “Steam Power.” Mead Reporter, May 1951, vol. IV, no. 5, p. 6.
33. “The Chillicothe Division’s New Warehouse.” Mead Reporter, Jun. 1954, vol. VII, no. 6, pp. 1-7.
34. “New Bleach Plant Opening.” Mead Reporter, 6 Mar. 1948, vol. 1, no. 4, p. 4.
35. “A Century of Progress.” Mead Reporter, Sept. 1954, vol. VII, no. 9, pp. 2-4.
36. “A new color plant.” Mead Reporter, Apr. 1958, vol. XI, no. 4, p. 15.
37. “Mead Adds Two Companies To Family Roster.” Mead Reporter, Dec. 1955, vol. VIII, no. 12, pp. 4-.