| Additional Information: | Formerly ca. 800-830 Hoberg (Elm) St. (Sanborn-Perris Map, 1957). Large, later industrial building located in the center of photo (BR 84/04) has a tall concrete foundation and pilastered brick walls above, which rise three floors (two interior floors) to the flat roof. The plain pilasters have large square concrete capitals and each pilaster frames the original window openings which are now filled with glass block; a feature which may be original to the building. This building is one of many in this large industrial complex. Adjacent to it on the east facing facade is a taller four-story-tall building which still retains its original metal sash windows.
Vestiges of the earliest buildings in the complex can still be seen in the small two-story tall brick building with stepped parapet visible in the center of photo (BR 84/5) and which is located just east of the previously mentioned four-story building. These three buildings are the only visible intact older buildings in a complex now dominated by much newer and larger buildings. This is probably due to their being sited on the bank of East River.
The Hoberg Paper Company was founded in Green Bay in 1895 and was the first paper plant to open in a community now strongly linked with the paper industry. John H. Hoberg had operated a paper plant in Kaukauna, but moved it to Green Bay in 1895. In 1902, the rival Green Bay Paper and Fiber Company was founded on this site. In 1922, with both firms in financial distress, a merger took place. In 1928, the company developed Charmin bath tissue, and in 1953, changed the company's name to Charmin Paper Mills. In 1957, Charmin Paper Mills was purchased by the Procter and Gamble Company, which presently operates the plant.
There are numerous factory building additions.
NAER INVENTORY (07/1979):
Most of the older buildings of Procter and Gamble Paper Products Co. at the firm's East River mill site have been torn down, significantly altered or surrounded by newer construction. Two older buildings which are visible and appear to have exteriors largely intact, are a four-story boiler house and a three-story paper manufacturing building. Both are built on the site of the original John Hoberg Paper Co. Both buildings are rectangular in shape with flat roofs, brick exterior and concrete foundations, fronting the East River. The boiler house, which has two metal chimneys, was built in the mid-1940's, while the adjacent paper manufacturing building was built about 1954.
Procter and Gamble is Green Bay's oldest paper making company, starting in 1895 as the John Hoberg Paper Co. by John Hoberg. He died later in a paper machine accident in his own mill. In 1921, the company consolidated with the Green Bay Paper & Fibre Co. and became the Hoberg Paper and Fibre Co. In 1953 the organization's corporate name was changed to Charmin Paper Mills and later to its present Procter & Gamble name. The paper company is said to have been the first, or one of the very first, Midwest paper producers to be unionized. I manufactures products under the "Charmin" label and operates another plant in Green Bay along the Fox River.
JOHN HOBERG PAPER CO; GREEN BAY PAPER AND FIBER CO. |
|---|
| Bibliographic References: | (A) Abrahams, Paul P. Industrial Survey of Brown County, Industrial Sites, Historical Industrial Survey. Unpublished manuscript on file, Historic Preservation Division, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
(B) Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Inc. Fire Insurance Map of Green Bay, Wisconsin. New York, 1957.
(C) Foley, Betsey, Ed. Green Bay: Gateway to the Great Waterway, Woodland Hills, Col. 1973, pp. 1954-5.
(D.) Larry V. Mastalish, community relations manager for Procter & Gamble, interviewed by Bill Meindl, 09/24/1980.
(E.) "When Green Bay Turned to Papermaking," THE WISCONSIN MAGAZINE, 1951, Madisen Publishing Co., Appleton, WI, Special Green Bay Number, p. 45.
(F.) "Paper Mills Here Lead in Industry's Rapid Growth," GREEN BAY PRESS-GAZETTE, Aug. 3, 1957, Greater Green Bay Progress, Edition, p. B-16, col. 2. |
|---|
