It’s time once again for #FlashbackFriday with the Whitewater Historical Society. Today’s image is of the Whitewater Paper Mill that was located on Trippe Lake off of Wisconsin Street today.

The Whitewater Paper Mill was built at the Trippe Lake dam on the site of a saw mill from the 1830s constructed by James Trippe, who financed the building of both the Trippe Lake and Cravath Lake dams and started industry in Whitewater. In 1859, Trippe and Crombie built this paper mill on the sawmill site. It had a stone foundation and brick walls. It made paper from straw, a plentiful by-product of wheat growing, which was dominating agriculture around Whitewater in the mid-19th century. The paper made at this mill in 1860 was advertised as book and wrapping paper. The paper mill operated until the mid-1890s. In the 1910s, the Whitewater Condensery (later the Hawthorn-Mellody Milk Plant) was built on this site. That complex was demolished in the 1990s and today condos sit on the site.

Join us next week for more from the Whitewater Historical Society

(3127STU, Whitewater Historical Society)