| Additional Information: | In 1839, Faye & Draper “put up a sawmill” on the Wisconsin River where Biron would be established, and “and sawed the first lumber in the vicinity. Francis Biron, “after whom the town was named, came here in 1840 and bought the mill in 1846. Three-quarters of Wood County was originally timber land, “with heavy forests of white pine.” It was estimated that by 1878, half of the county’s wood supply had been depleted.
In 1895, the Biron Mill was purchased and rebuilt by the Grand Rapids Pulp & Paper (GRPP) Co. and was absorbed by the Consolidated Water Power & Paper (CWPP) Co. in 1911. The establishment of the village and its subsequent growth was dependent on the mill, which primarily produced newsprint and wallpaper. The GRPP directed the plat of Biron to be surveyed in 1895, and the village was incorporated in 1910. In 1923 Biron was described as a CWPP town, “because practically if not all the residents there or heads of the families are employed by the Consolidated Company in their Biron division. The village has all the modern conveniences of any metropolitan city, including good water, electric lights and sewers. There are some 50 fine dwellings in Biron, most of which were built by the Consolidated Company. The town is laid out largely along one street which approached from Wisconsin Rapids by a concrete road.” Consolidated employees unionized in 1919, which led to 8-hour shifts and wage increases; the 5-day work week was implemented in 1931. In 1950 and 1955, the Biron mill employed about 710 people.
In 1912, the head of water on the dam was raised from 13 to 16 feet. A “new concrete dam in the east channel of the river was built” in 1916, and the head of water had been raised to about 20 feet by 1923. These improvements “necessitated extensive dyking of the banks, as the land adjoining the river for several miles back from the dam was lower than the new water level.” Drainage was also “provided for the land back of the dyke, roads had to be re-located and bridges built.” Since construction, the mill facilities have undergone continual improvements to adapt to modern techniques and machinery. New paper machines were constructed in 1922-23, 1955-57, and 1985-86, the last of which produced paper for magazines and catalogs. CWPP changed its name to Consolidated Papers, Inc. in 1962. The company was sold to a Helsinki-based firm in 2000; since then most of the former Consolidated Papers mills have been further sold off or closed. The Biron mill was sold in 2014 and again in 2018; the current owner is Nine Dragons Paper of Hong Kong. ND Paper invested nearly $190 million in the mill, which now “creates packaging grade paper from completely recycled material.” Machines that had made “lightweight coated paper” were converted or replaced for production of “brown paper for cardboard boxes, paper bags and other packaging materials.”
The mill property has been continually altered since it was initially constructed in 1895. While there are some historic brick portions exposed, many of these structures have been obscured by or rebuilt with larger industrial, utilitarian structures. |
|---|
| Bibliographic References: | Global Paper Money, “New facility opens at ND Paper going 100% recyclable,” May 19, 2023. Available online, https://www.globalpapermoney.com/new-facility-opens-at-nd-paper-going-100-recyclable-cms-16383.
Shuda, Caitlin, 2020. “Unfolding 126 years of history at Wisconsin Rapids paper mill.” Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, September 22. Available online, https://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/in-depth/money/2020/09/22/wisconsin-rapids-paper-mill-unfolding-126-years-history-consolidated-papers-verso/3401093001
Urban, Roy and Max Andrae, 1994. “Consolidated Water Power Company: One Hundred Years of Water Power, 1894-1994.” Compiled for the Centennial Committee of the Consolidated Water Power Company. On file at the McMillan Memorial Library. Digitized format available online, https://content.mpl.org/digital/collection/mcml/id/2129/
|
|---|
