KAUKAUNA – In a warm building, over the loud hums of machinery, Kevin and Christopher Brown pointed and used a flashlight to show their family members the different parts of the No. 14 and 15 paper machines inside the Thilmany mill on Tuesday evening.
Christopher Brown, 34, is an electrician who's worked at the Kaukauna mill for nine years. His dad, meanwhile, has worked at Thilmany for 40 years. Fan-Folded Paper Packs Conversion Line
"I just like making paper," said Kevin Brown, 60, a machine tender on No. 15. "It's a good job."
The Browns are among generations of people from the Fox Valley who have worked at the Thilmany mill across three centuries. That's why Ahlstrom, the mill's owner, invited employees and their families to tour the paper machines Tuesday, to celebrate the mill's 140 years of operation.
"Really, the only way we could achieve this is through those multiple generations of families and papermakers," said Addie Teeters, Ahlstrom spokesperson, who's been with the mill for 18 years.
Since 1883, the Thilmany mill has produced paper products along the Fox River. It remains an integrated mill, meaning it makes pulp and paper — a setup that's become more rare in today's paper industry, with many mills importing pulp made elsewhere.
Roughly 750 employees work at Thilmany, between the plant and the central office building, housed in the historical paper mill. In total, Ahlstrom employs just over 1,800 people across Wisconsin, at the company's Kaukauna, De Pere, Rhinelander and Mosinee locations. Thilmany is the oldest of the four.
"There's a lot of pride in that," said Chris Williams, Thilmany's plant manager. "We've survived a lot of challenges over 140 years and (are) really proud of the team, how they're always recreating the mill."
When Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company — the business that the Kaukauna mill operated under for decades —celebrated its centennial anniversary in 1983, the company compiled its long history into a book titled, "A Little Ways Ahead."
That title captured why Thilmany "survived and prospered," the authors wrote, "when several other local paper companies did not."
Thilmany always stayed "a little ways ahead" of its competitors, the book says, by remaining "forward-looking, responding to the newest market demands" and "taking up the latest industrial technology," among other steps, "in order to get ahead and stay there."
Williams credits how the mill has continued to reinvent itself over the decades, making different specialty products.
"You don't make 140 years unless you're continuing to change what you do," he said.
What excites Teeters, she said, are the innovations that Ahlstrom is making in the push to replace plastic with sustainable products. Take the company's pet food packaging as an example, she said. Ahlstrom made a bag that is fiber based, grease resistant and durable.
"The fact that we are inventing new packaging solutions to replace things that are nonrenewable, are just going in landfills, not only are we finding new ways to make the mill competitive," Teeters said, "but we are also finding ways to just make the world better."
While much has changed over 140 years in business, the mill's name remains true to the man who was instrumental in its creation.
Oscar Thilmany, a German immigrant, arrived in Kaukauna in 1883. That year, he was part of a group that founded the American Pulp Company. Six years later, Thilmany bought out his partners and renamed the business after himself.
In those early years, the book says, Oscar Thilmany "established his company's trademark": specialty papers. The mill produced a variety of products, such as wrappers to protect fruit during shipment and waxed papers used by butchers and candy makers.
More than a century later, Thilmany and its sister mills in Rhinelander, Mosinee and De Pere still make specialty papers — a segment of today's paper industry that's shown promising growth. The Wisconsin facilities create the brown paper that holds Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, wrappers for different fast-food restaurants, Mission chip bags, the liner inside cans of chips or dough, the paper wrap for dynamite and fuse sticks, and the paper-based tape used on packages that may be delivered to your home, among other items.
Another thing that's remained consistent at the mill for decades? Its distinct sulfur smell, which comes from the kraft pulping process. While some may complain that it's stinky, that aroma is actually the "smell of money," said Kaukauna Mayor Tony Penterman.
It's "just amazing," Penterman said Tuesday, how the mill has supported thousands of families over its 140 years, as they bought homes, sent their kids to college and lived in the community.
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Over the years, the Kaukauna mill has weathered major world events, including World War I and II and the Great Depression.
When hundreds of employees went off to fight in the Second World War, the mill faced an emergency, and "the company suspended its old rule of not hiring married women," according to the book.
Roughly 60 women worked at Thilmany in 1943 on the paper and rewinding machines and as helpers in the wood room. The "Thilmany News," a newsletter created for employees who'd joined the war efforts, remarked that "girl employees are becoming so common that the boys don't even turn around and stare at them anymore."
"Papermaking was a defense industry, and Thilmany's contributions to the war effort were significant, since the company stood as the nation's third largest manufacturer of valuable waterproof papers," the book says. "Security at the mill was tight: all employees were photographed, fingerprinted, and issued identification cards."
Company leaders were particularly proud, the authors wrote, that Thilmany helped develop a mold-proof and insect-proof paper to protect G.I.'s rations against a tropical fungus.
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The histories of Thilmany and Kaukauna "are inseparable," according to the book. "Rarely did a change within the company fail to exert an impact on the community and vice versa."
The mill has supported the community in many ways over the years. In the 1940s and '50s, as an example, Thilmany's philanthropic efforts included money for a new municipal swimming pool, a campaign for a local hospital and improvements at Lawrence University, according to the book.
By the early 1960s, the humble company that Oscar Thilmany envisioned "had grown into a complex business organization with about 1,500 employees," with records sales and production, the authors wrote. Near the end of the decade, "Thilmany had grown beyond the reach of family control," and there was a "need for fresh capital to keep it competitive in an economy dominated by huge corporations," the book said. Ultimately, Thilmany merged with Hammermill Paper Corporation in 1969.
In the following decades, the mill passed between additional owners, such as International Paper and a private equity firm, before joining Ahlstrom, a Finnish company, in 2018.
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On Tuesday, visitors to the mill passed piles and piles of wood before they got a glimpse of some of the mill's five paper machines.
Employees showed their families how the paper, made with natural fiber from hardwood and softwood pulp, moved through the massive machine, which dried the paper and removed water along the way. The process culminated in a roll of paper weighing 17 tons.
It's "mind boggling" how many paper products people use in their everyday lives that they might not think twice about, Kevin Brown said. Chances are, some of those products came from Thilmany, he said.
As the mill marks its 140th anniversary, Brown said he hopes for "longevity" for the mill and its future papermakers. Williams, the plant manager, said he wishes for "continued growth."
"We want to make sure we keep our team safe. We want to make sure we're successful. We want generations to continue to work here," Williams said.
1883: Oscar Thilmany and his partners found American Pulp Company in Kaukauna. Among the pulp and paper mills in the area, the company was considered "the runt of the litter," according to a 1983 book celebrating the centennial anniversary of Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company.
1889: Thilmany buys out his partners and renames the company after himself. He also invested in the company's first paper machine, an 82-inch Fourdrinier.
1901: Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company is legally incorporated, and Oscar Thilmany sells his majority ownership.
1913: Thilmany becomes a million-dollar corporation, "the first in Kaukauna," according to the book.
1943: Women start working at the Thilmany mill as employees went off to fight in World War II.
1954: Thilmany creates its own philanthropic organization, the Thilco Foundation, which supported the Kaukauna community.
1969: Hammermill Paper Company purchases Thilmany Pulp and Paper Company.
1986: International Paper Company purchases Hammermill.
2005: International Paper sells its industrial papers business, which includes Thilmany, to Kohlberg and Co., a New York equity firm. Kohlberg renames that business as Thilmany, LLC.
2006: Kohlberg and Co., buys Packaging Dynamics Corporation and merges it with Thilmany.
2013: Packaging Dynamics Corporation sells the Thilmany mill and other assets to New York-based private equity firm KPS Capital Partners. KPS combines the Nicolet mill in De Pere and the Thilmany mill in Kaukauna with Wausau Paper Corporation's specialty paper business facilities in Rhinelander and Mosinee to form Expera Specialty Solutions.
2018: Ahlstrom purchases Expera Specialty Solutions and begins operating the Kaukauna, De Pere, Mosinee and Rhinelander facilities.
Automatic Paper Folder Reach Becky Jacobs at bjacobs@gannett.com or 920-993-7117. Follow her on Twitter at@ruthyjacobs.