Mill at the Falls Celebrates 100 years

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Boise Inc's International Falls, Minn., USA, mill is celebrating its 100-year history, which is being written in a book titled "The Mill at the Falls–100 Years of Papermaking on the Border" by author Bill Beck. Paper mill employees, retirees, and community citizens will celebrate the anniversary this summer with a picnic and mill tours.

The Rainy River flows from Rainy Lake for more than 70 miles, dividing the U.S. from Canada and Minnesota from Ontario. Prior to the industrialization of the area, the Rainy River had a 28 ft drop at Koochiching Falls. Edward Wellington Backus, a sawmill operator from Minneapolis, saw the potential of a hydro dam for power and the forests surrounding the river yet uncut would serve a mill to make paper. The dam was built in 1905 and the paper mill in 1909, with newsprint first produced on June 6, 1910.

The mill grew to include four paper machines. Kraft paper for bags was a product for some years, and then after World War II, the mill began bleaching pulp. Today the I-Falls mill produces 1,550 tpd of business papers (cutsize copier and printer paper), label and release papers, basesheets, business, and specialty printing grades on its' four paper machines, coater, and five sheeters.

Boise Inc. was formed following the Aldabra 2 Acquisition Corp. purchase of the paper and packaging assets of Boise Cascade L.L.C., in February 2008. Headquartered in Boise, Idaho, tryhe company manufactures packaging products and papers including corrugated containers, containerboard, label and release and flexible packaging papers, imaging papers for the office and home, printing and converting papers, newsprint, and market pulp. It has approximately 4,100 employees and operates five paper mills, five corrugated products plants, a corrugated sheet feeder, a corrugated sheet plant, two distribution facilities, and a transportation business.