Excello Mill was built in 1865 by an English immigrant that came to Middletown, Ohio to serve as the foreman of its first paper mill.
Located near the first lock of the Miami-Erie Canal, it was the most westerly writing paper mill in the country at the time–so the owners claimed. While it was originally named Harding, Irwin & Company, it was reorganized in 1873 as the Harding Paper Company.
A. E. Harding portrait. From Weeks p.277.
A Sanborn Fire Insurance Co. map from 1921.
After it was purchased in 1898 by the American Writing Paper Company, three years after Harding’s death, it was managed by Thomas Jones, Harding’s son in law. By 1916 it was known as the Harding-Jones Paper company. Excello Mill was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. It closed in 1983 after becoming well known as a maker of custom fine writing paper.
For more on the history of the mill, check my friend’s writeup at Abandoned.
Gallery
This track has been going past the mill since at least 1890, when it the paper mill was powered by a water wheel.
A look at the center of the historic paper mill before the blizzard hit. Check out that pink couch!
A detailed view of one of the cupolas that rise from the roof, making the factory look like it was brought here from New England.
A stencil lead me to the mill from the administrative area.
If I hadn’t already suffered enough from a terrible run-in with chiggers this trip, I’d kick up my feet here.
A crane sits over a displaced lunch table. Someone liked Big Macs.
Bundles of recycled paper wait to be boiled in a chemical solution in these vaults. All the numbers are hand painted.
Below the main floor of the factory. This room is obviously overbuilt to handle the weight.
Narrow steel stairs lead from the paper mill floor down to the boiler room.
Snow blows into the boiler room through the open door.
Vaulted ceilings to support the weight of the machinery above, now gone.
A side view of a press (?) on a top floor of the mill. Note the direct drive belt, center right, that connects to a central shaft. Eventually, all the belts and pulleys are driven from one engine—steam and later electric—in the basement.
Multiple gear reductions make me thing this is a press of some sort. It was belt powered from a direct drive system that was somewhat intact—unusual for a plant that was obviously electrified. Perhaps this area was abandoned before others.
A passing CSX locomotive, as seen from the top floor of the mill—a lucky shot. The horn echoed through the sleeping plant.
Mounts in the floor show where equipment used to run, controlled by the room that hates into the hall.
Leftover stock rots in a warehouse before it could be sent for cutting or coating.
This is the top third of a huge industrial mixer. The other two thirds extend through the floor into the basement.
The bottom of a big mixer that opens up on the ground floor. Note that some of the pipes have rusted to the point they cannot hold their own weight.
