The Paper Discovery Center in Appleton offers more than insight into the science and art of paper.
As the powerful waters of the Fox River’s "grand chute" rush below the tall, arched windows of the 130-year-old former Atlas paper mill, visitors will find themselves transported back in time.
The year is 1878, and electricity has yet to make its way to the Fox River. Instead, the current is turning six water wheels that power three papermaking machines, owned by John A. Kimberly, Charles B. Clark and others who founded Kimberly, Clark and Co. The water itself is the most prized resource in paper making, used in a process that at the Atlas Mill will eventually produce wrapping paper, earning Kimberly and Clark a widespread reputation for new product and process innovation.
Up and down the river outside the Atlas Paper Co. are other paper mills owned by other entrepreneurs and investors, who with business savvy and force of will built an industry that would eventually keep the Fox Cities afloat during the Great Depression and help catapult Wisconsin to the forefront of papermaking.
By 1889, 36 paper mills operated from Neenah to Kaukauna, 16 of them on the stretch of the Fox River flowing through Appleton. By 1958, Wisconsin earned its place as the number one papermaking state in the nation. It still holds that spot today, producing more than 35,000 jobs and $2 billion in annual salaries. As of 2004, the last year for which data was available, the Fox River Valley was home to 64 paper-related manufacturing facilities, including converting and printing businesses, according to the Wisconsin Paper Council.
The Paper Discovery Center, which houses the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame, celebrates a cultural, technological and economic legacy, says Barb Sauer, managing director and educational coordinator at the Paper Discovery Center.
Since opening its doors in 2005, visits to the center continue to increase. Bolstered by its status as an Association of Science–Technology Center, school field trips and science education programs have been responsible for about 2,500 visits in 2008, up 56 percent from 2007.
"Not only do visitors learn about the science of making paper, but they come away with a better understanding of the area’s forefathers — of the work ethic and all it took to build an entire industry," says Sauer, who worked for 19 years in research and development at Kimberly–Clark before becoming a teacher.
It’s an industry that has been — and still is — the livelihood of thousands of area residents. There were 11,500 jobs in Winnebago and Outagamie counties’ paper manufacturing sector by the end of 2006. Combined annual salaries totaled more than $700 million, according to Jeff Landin, president of the Wisconsin Paper Council.
"That alone is a staggering number," he says. "That’s not figuring in the multiplier effect of that dollar, which I’m sure would head well north of $1 billion circulating in the Fox Cities as a result of the paper industry."
Given the long-time regional presence of paper manufacturers and the ready abundance of paper products in everyday life, the paper industry is sometimes taken for granted, says Paper Industry International Hall of Fame board of directors member and paper chemist Alan Button, who began Buttonwood Consulting LLC after retiring from a 35-year career in research and development at Georgia–Pacific.
"Paper is so fundamentally essential to the culture that we tend to overlook it," he says. "At its most basic, we wouldn’t have books and the kind of universal education we have now without fairly consistently produced low-cost paper. We wouldn’t have the democratic societies we have because the common person wouldn’t have had access to the learning and wisdom and achievements of man."
