St. Regis Paper Company was undergoing constant expansion at its Portland Avenue plant; in this August, 1951, photograph, new building forms are placed on brick stands. In recent years St. Regis had expanded their kraft paper operations and was to add a multiwall bag plant. They had installed a 6.5 million dollar paper mill and machine to increase their product offerings beyond pulp. The paper machine was the first entirely designed and engineered by the company; it was to eventually produce more than 80,000 tons of paper and paperboard a year.

Progress photographs; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

An engineer works on machinery, a paper "tensiometer," at the St. Regis Paper Co., Kraft pulp division. The equipment has been "locked out" with a key, so that it can not be started while the engineer is working. The two year old paper machine was approximately a block long. In 1952, St. Regis produced 400 tons of unbleached pulp per day. 160 of those tons were bleached and made into dried heavy sheets & placed together into 400 lb. bales, put into boxcars & shipped to other mills or the open market. The remaining 240 tons was used to make multiwalled bags in the company's bag plant or wrapping paper. Picture taken for General Electric Supply, Apparatus Department.

Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; Mechanical systems--Tacoma; Machinery; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960;

Koppers Precipitator at St. Regis Paper Co. Interior of building with brick wall with several round tanks of various sizes on top with pipes and valves coming out - some marked "danger-high voltage." St. Regis completed an eight year expansion and improvement program in 1952. Included in that program was the construction of a new combustion engineering company furnace. The six story high furnace had a capacity of 225 tons and was built in conjunction with the Koppers electric precipitator. The precipitator collected odor bearing particles before they escaped the chimney into the air thus reducing pollution and odor. (TNT 2-17-1952, pg. C-14)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

An aerial view of St. Regis Paper Company plant showing the completed multi-wall bag plant (with the dark roof dotted with vents) and the narrow kraft-paper mill.

Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; Mills--Tacoma; Logs; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960;

An aerial view of St. Regis Paper Company. Logs would be pulled up the ramp in the foreground from the log pond into the woodroom in the building close to the edge of Commencement Bay. TPL-5903

Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; Mills--Tacoma; Logs; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960;

Aerial photograph to show the steel work on a new building at St. Regis, Tacoma. Construction of a bag plant at the St. Regis Paper company started in June 1951 with the driving of piling as the first step. The addition was built of steel and concrete and would be used for the production of industrial-use bags for cement, fertilizer and other materials needing heavy-duty holders. When completed, this plant would replace the leased plant at Seattle. (TNT 6/15/1951; St. Regis Paper Company 1951 Annual Report)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Progress photographs; Building construction--Tacoma--1940-1950; Aerial photographs; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

St. Regis Paper Co. at night with lighted Christmas display on top of building. Union Oil and its tanks with the famous 76 logo are in the right foreground on the City (now Foss) Waterway.

Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Christmas decorations; Union Oil Co. of California (Tacoma);

Seven men and women are operating machinery at St. Regis Paper Company's new bag plant. Rolls of brown paper are seen on the far right. The paper is fed into folding machines which eject the multiple-layer tubes onto a conveyor belt on the left. Here women are removing and stacking the brown paper tubes ready for the next operation in completing the bags, sewing the ends closed.

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Mills--Tacoma--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

Exterior of St. Regis Paper Company's new bag plant on the Tacoma tideflats with Tacoma in the background.

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Mills--Tacoma--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

August, 1960, progress photographs of St. Regis Paper Co. mill ordered by Malcolm McGhie, industrial consultant, New York. View of portion of St. Regis Paper Co. plant in the Tideflats including stacks of logs piled adjacent to railroad tracks. Cylinder-shaped structure is probably the new continuous digester which was expected to increase capacity by 325 tons per day. The tower is 110 feet high. Capital expenditures for 1960 & 1961 included $20,893,881 for the Kraft mill expansion of St. Regis' Tacoma plant. This amount, by far, was the highest budgeted for those years and accounted for over one-third of the money planned for new construction and plant improvement. The addition to the Tacoma mill was made to permit St. Regis to furnish a larger part of the needs of the company's own box plants and bag factories in the western and midwest states. (1960 Annual report, p. 3, 6, TNT 11-13-60, A-18)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1960-1970; Progress photographs; Logs; Machinery;

View of enlarged machine room in the St. Regis Paper Co.'s kraft paper and board mill on November 28, 1960. This progress photograph was taken on behalf of Malcolm McGhie, industrial consultant from New York City, for possible use in St. Regis' 1960 Annual report. A new paper machine was being erected in 1960 which would increase and diversify Tacoma's paper and board capacity. (St. Regis 1960 Annual Report, p. 7)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1960-1970; Progress photographs; Machinery;

1936 Daily operations at St. Regis. Although the specific St. Regis plant was not identified by the photographer, this was probably the Tacoma St. Regis located at 801 Portland Ave. Various sections of the facility and its machinery were photographed in a two-day period in December of 1936 by the Boland studios. The machine above may have been used to dry pulp since steam is shown rising from the rear roller. A million dollars had been spent to transform the Tacoma plant into a modern facility so that production of 60,000 tons of bleached pulp per year could be achieved. G37.1-016 (T.Times 10-14-36, p. 5-article; T.Times 11-25-36, p. 5-article)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1930-1940; Machinery; Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940;

1936 Daily operations at St. Regis. View of large funnels and other unidentified machinery in photograph taken on December 21, 1936. Plant is believed to be the St. Regis Tacoma location, 801 Portland Ave. The Tacoma facility had recently undergone an expensive remodeling to be transformed into a modern plant where 60,000 tons of bleached pulp were expected to be produced a year. Over 800 men had been employed in the reconstruction process boosting St. Regis' payroll to $15,000 a week. Much new machinery was purchased including electric saws and machines to bark logs. By late November of 1936, the Tacoma St. Regis had commenced operations with a crew of 250. A bleaching unit would be ready in three months. (T.Times 10-14-36, p. 5-article; T. Times 11-25-36, p. 5-article)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1930-1940; Machinery; Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940;

1936 daily operations at St. Regis. In late 1936 St. Regis Kraft Co.'s Tacoma plant began operating with a crew of 250 at its newly remodeled and modernized facility in the Tideflats. Boland studios paid visits to the pulp plant on December 21-22, 1936, to photograph the new interiors including machinery. Here two unidentified St. Regis employees focus their attention of one of the new machines. G37.1-048 (T.Times 10-14-36, p. 5-article; T. Times 11-25-36, p. 5-article)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1930-1940; Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940; Machinery;

1936 daily operations at St. Regis. The Tacoma St. Regis underwent expansion and modernization of its facility in the Tideflats during most of 1936. New machinery was brought in as the demand for bleached pulp grew. By the end of November of that year, the pulp plant had started operating with an initial crew of 250. Eventually the plant would run continuously on a 24-hour schedule with four staggered shifts of eight hours and provide employment for many Tacomans. (T.Times 10-14-36, p. 5-article; T. Times 11-25-36, p. 5-article)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1930-1940; Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940; Machinery;

Unidentified equipment at St. Regis. St. Regis Kraft in Tacoma had undergone a $1,000,000 modernization project so that the company could move into bleached pulp production. New machinery was purchased and the site expanded. The purpose of the tall structure shown above was not provided; each row had six concrete or metal handles. G37.1-027

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma); Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940; Equipment;

Reconstruction and expansion of the St. Regis Kraft facility in the Tideflats was nearly completed in late December of 1936. The company had spent $1,000,000, a tidy sum in the Depression years, to update their large pulp plant to handle the production of bleached pulp. New machinery was purchased to deal with 25,000 short logs per hour, including electric saws to cut the logs into irregular-shaped chunks and machines to bark the logs before going to regular pulp chippers. The bleaching unit would be ready in early 1937. G34.1-104 (T.Times 10-14-36, p. 5-article; T.Times 11-25-36, p. 5-article)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma); Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940;

Huge sheets of bleached pulp are being manufactured at the Tacoma St. Regis Kraft plant in February of 1937. The plant had recently reopened a few months ago after much remodeling and expansion. St. Regis was moving into the growing bleached pulp business. According to the Tacoma Times, five million board feet of giant hemlock logs were chewed into chips every month and converted into pulp to be used in the manufacture of paper. This meant that the Tacoma plant produced 150 tons of pulp daily; the whole process from sawing logs to chipping to cooking with chemicals, washed and dried and finally baling took about six hours. St. Regis Kraft was a wholly owned subsidiary of the St. Regis Paper Co. Pulp from Tacoma supplied the eastern paper mills of the St. Regis Paper Co. as well as being exported to foreign countries, including Japan. G37.1-061 (T.Times 1-27-37, p. 1, 5-articles on St. Regis)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1930-1940; Paper industry--1930-1940; Lumber industry--1930-1940; Mills--Tacoma--1930-1940; Machinery;

The new bag multiwall plant at St. Regis. St. Regis was proud of being identified with the development of wood conservation methods in the Northwest. The Tacoma mill began experimenting with the utilization of chips cut from debarked wood slabs from sawmills and other wood using industries in their manufacture of kraft pulp. Wood chips were purchased on long-term contracts in the immediate vicinity which reduced the waste from sawmills, sash and door factories and plywood mills that had previously been burned. (TNT, 10/19/1952)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Mills--Tacoma--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

This view of an open electrical control panel was taken in August, 1951, at the St. Regis Paper Company. New construction was continuing at the Portland Avenue plant as the piles of dirt and trash indicates. A new multiwall bag plant was completed in 1952; it was equipped to produce a full range of bags with six production lines. The new plant also had its own printing presses and a complete art and engraving department.

Progress photographs; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

Construction continues on new buildings at the St. Regis Paper Company on Portland Avenue. Still in its early stages in August, 1951, the new buildings have been mapped out with low walls but as the mounds of dirt indicate, no flooring is in place. St. Regis was nearing completion of its eight year expansion plan; this structure is probably the multiwall bag plant which was completed in 1952. Anticipated to add an additional 400 workers to the St. Regis payroll, the new plant, constructed of steel and concrete, would be used for the production of industrial-use bags for cement, fertilizer, and other heavy-duty items. Hooker Electrochemical's tank cars can be seen in the background close to the St. Regis water tower.

Progress photographs; St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; Factories--Tacoma--1950-1960;

Conveyor link belt at St. Regis Paper Company. Link Belt Company. Long conveyor containing wood chips.

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; Lumber industry--Tacoma--1950-1960; Conveying systems--Tacoma--1950-1960;

Interiors at St. Regis Tacoma plant for 1952 Annual Report showing a recovery boiler. A major expansion program completed in 1952 increased the company's production capacity. St. Regis products made in Tacoma included sulphate pulp, kraft paper and board and multiwall bags. Products made in their other plants also included printing and publications papers and industrial and decorative plastics. A forerunner in conservation and recycling, Kaiser operated an efficient plant and originated the use of wood chips and ends in the paper process.

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;

Interior exposure of gauges for the new Swenson Evaporator Co. installations at St. Regis Paper Co. Tacoma. An 8 year expansion program for the company was to be completed in 1952. Part of this program was focused on recycling and reusing processing elements in an efficient manner. The Evaporator was used to recover chemicals used. (TNT 2-17-1952, pg. C-14)

St. Regis Paper Co. (Tacoma)--1950-1960; Paper industry--Tacoma--1950-1960;