S. D. Warren Paper Mill

S. D. Warren Paper Mill is a small mill built on the Presumpscot River in the 1730s in a rural and fairly unpopulated area. In 1854, that small paper mill, in the soon-to-be established town of Westbrook, Maine, was purchased for $28,000 by Samuel Dennis Warren. The mill was named Grant, Warren and Company. In that year, the mill was only running two paper machines and had a production output of about 3,000 pounds of paper per day. Nine years later in 1863, an additional machine was added to the mill, and the production increased to 11,000 pounds per day.

In 1854, paper was made by beating down rags and using the pulp from the rags. In 1867, after the mill changed its name to S.D. Warren Paper Mill Company, Warren decided to add wood fibers with rags fibers for paper, making it the first mill in the United States to do so. The mill became the largest in the world by doing so. By 1880, the mill produced 35,000 pounds of paper per day.

After S. D. Warren’s death in 1888, the mill continued to grow through the 20th century, employing close to 3,000 Westbrook residents.

In 1995, SAPPI Limited, a paper company out of South Africa paid $300 million for the mill, and outsourced most of the work in the mill to South Africa. The mill now only employs about 300 people, but continues to be a presence in the city of Westbrook.