The Numbers!

            A look at some early GNP numbers! “A sudden and curious transformation is taking place at Millinocket, Me., on the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad where the big pulp mill corporation has 2,000 men at work blasting, moving frozen rock and earth and sinking the casements for the dam and foundations of the great mills. Many of the laborers are from the provinces, some are Bangor lumbermen, but the most are foreign laborers that were picked up in large cities.” (From Bangor Commercial, April 10, 1899)

            “100 men have been at work on the mill site for several months. By May 1, one thousand men will be employed. It is estimated that 15 months later the mill will be ready for operation. It will have 8 machines, with a capacity for 250 tons of paper daily and will employ 659 hands. A town will be established with a population of 2000 people within a year.” (Kennebec Journal, March 8, 1899)

            (Appleton, Wisconsin Post, May 18, 1899) According to Garrett Schenck, general manager, “this mill will be the single biggest paper mill in the country containing ten paper machines and able to make 250 tons of news and manilla papers a day. The building will be 900 feet long, and over six million bricks will be needed to build it.”

            Another paper (Bangor Daily Commercial, May 24, 1899) gives the number of bricks as 8 million and also says “that parties familiar with the situation believe the total will exceed that amount.” The Commercial also writes that “the different kinds of cement needed will exceed 35,000 to 40,000 barrels before the work is completed.”

            The Bangor Commercial continues, “It is said that there will be from 175,000 to 200,000 yards of rock and granite excavation. It is said that there will be from 35,000 to 45,000 yards of rock and granite used in the construction of the foundations, retaining walls, etc. Many other articles, such as iron, lumber, nails, spikes, lime, etc. will be used in proportion to the principal articles mentioned.”

            The May 24 article lists many more numbers. It estimated the following for the completed mill. 100,000 tons of coal per year (ship to Bangor, rail to Millinocket) plus “a large amount of lime and sulphur. At the May, 1899 writing, the paper stated that 300 men were currently employed by The B & A RR, Great Northern Paper Co., and JB Mullen & Co. and that by the end of the week the number would rise to 500.

            These articles paint a picture of an amazing event taking place here in the woods. People coming from all over the world to work their trade and coming to a place that had almost nothing that people would look for today. They slept on the ground, in shacks, in tents and other needs and supplies were practically non-existent. Most were men who left families behind, but some brought families with them. At the museum, we recently learned of one man who came with his wife. They lived in a boxcar out at the railroad station and the wife gave birth there to their son. He was given the middle name Millinocket!