Relics of the Industrial Past

Relics of the Industrial Past. Crossroads of the Adirondacks Trail. Remnants of mills are all that remain of Tupper Lake's once booming logging industry. , Logging and processing logs was big business in Tupper Lake from the 1890s through World War I; it remained an important business until the 1960s. , In 1900 Tupper Lake was competing with Glens Falls for the title of "Empire State Lumbering Capital." Sawmills worked around the clock to process logs so thick on Raquette Pond that hardly any open water was visible. , Between the Sherman and Norwood Mills in Tupper Lake over 30 million board feet of lumber was sawn in 1900. No other community in the state came close to these figures. , The First Mill. , The first sawmill on Raquette Pond was built by Howard H. Hobson in 1889. After it burned in 1896, A. Sherman Lumber Co. operated a new mill on the site until 1915. This mill became known as the Sisson Mill. Its name came from the Sisson family of Potsdam who also owned the Raquette River Paper Company. Charles Sisson, manager of the Tupper operations, was elected Tupper's first mayor in 1902. The cluster of homes and buildings on the site of the A. Sherman Lumber Company at the midway point between uptown and downtown Tupper Lake was known as Sissonville. , Draper Mill Story. , This site originally housed a chemical works run by Brooklyn Cooperage Company, a subsidary of American Sugar Refining Company. Operating until 1915, it was followed by Tupper Lake Chemical Co. until 1919. , The old stack you see remains from the Draper Division of Rockwell International, which operated from the 1940s into the 1970s. Draper Corporation of Hopedale, MA was the largest manufacturer of automatic textile looms in the world. Their Tupper Lake facitity made maple bobbin blanks for looms that were used in textile plants around the globe. , [obverse] , Mill Time , 1860 Pomeroy Lumber Co. and Sawmill , 1888-1915 Howard H. Hobson Sawmill, sold to A. Sherman Co. , 1890-1926 John Hurd Sawmill, "Big Mill" , 1899-1911 Int. Paper Co. "Underwood Mill" , 1899-1913 Santa Clara Rossing Mill , 1900-1902 Santa Clara Paper Board Mill , 1900-1920 Brooklyn Cooperage Stave and Heading Mill , 1900-1915 Brooklyn Cooperage Chemical Plant , 1915-post world war one Tupper Lake Chemical Plant , 1915-1921 C.H. Elliott Mangle Roll Mill , 1924-1931 C.H. Elliott Sawmill , 1948-1978 Draper Corp. Bobbin Roughing Mill , 1948-1963 U.S. Bobbin and Shuttle Co. , 1915-1964 Oval Wood Dish Co. Purchased A. Sherman Lumber Co. , 1964-2008 Oval Wood Dish, Inc. , 1965-1969 Adirondack Plywood Corporation; sold to U.S. Plywood , 1970-1990 Tupper Lake Veneer Co. , 1994-present Tupper Lake Hardwoods