Paper Mill Complex

Paper Mill Complex. Canal Water Powers Paper Production. , Surrounded By Immense Water Power , Delphi Paper Mill: George Robertson came from Scotland and established a small paper mill here in 1845. It was powered by Canal water leased by the State and parallel to the Wabash River. Enoch Rinehart bought an interest in the mill in 1848 only to see it burn in 1849. Rinehart with a new associate. Charles Wood rebuilt the mill in 1850 During 1851, Abner Bowen bought out Wood. In 1864 Bowen sold his interest to Charles Robertson. By 1873 Rinehart had become the sole owner.

Robinson and Wood Paper Mill: Located to the north, also using canal water power, George Robinson and John Armitage burt a paper mill in 1853. When Armitage retired, his interest was purchased by Charles A. Wood. Later Dewey and Griffith took over management. In 1868, Abner H. Bowen with his son A.T. Bowen bought and operated the mill.

Wabash River water, at the nearby Pittsburg dam, raised the river level to feed water into the Canal which also was used to turn the mill's wheel: Upstream at the dam in 1881, vigilantes dynamited the dam releasing the impounded water into the river by passing the mill shutting it down never to operate again.

During its heyday, "Rinehart Mill” gained a reputation for making high-quality high-rag content for all its papers a process often reserved for writing paper. In The days before paper bags, Rinehart Mill's brown wrapping paper was popular with grocery and hardware stores and their lighter brown paper with dry good stores. Merchants knew that quality wrappings reflected well on their businesses.

An 1849 edition of the Delphi Weekly Times, over a century and a half, retaining a fresh appearance is a testament to the high quality paper made here. Loads of Rhinehart and Wood papers were sent to Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Louisville, as well as nearby Indiana newspaper presses in Logansport, Lafayette, Kokomo, and Huntington.

A continuous opera, rags were ripped into strips, buttons and buckles were removed and the rags were then boiled. Alhoiling, beaters pounded them into a pulp. Next, pulp was passed into a cylinder machine which rolled tulip onto a slow moving felt belt draining off excess water: then to rollers, from which the paper passed over during the curing process.

Rags were in demand and came to Delphi on board canal boats. Delphi merchants advertised old rags in trade for cash or exchange for merchandise. Children could earn a cent and a half a pound for rags to be made into paper. Large numbers of buttons and buckles have been found at the Papermill Site. Much of the old cotton-clothing brought to the ma had to be stripped of any noncotton items.

Canal Pivot Bridge No. 49 , Numbered consecutively from the Indiana Ohio state line 120 canal miles east, road bridges provided both foot and wagon traffic over the canal. No. 49 was a pivot bridge anchored on the berm side of the can An operator turned a crank mechanism used to swing the bridge out o the way of advancing canal boats. At its dedication in the 1840s, Miss Alice V. Jackson was given the honor of rotating the elaborate structure opening the way for a packet boat.