Financial lulls in the paper industry led to several shutdowns and restarts for the Gill Paper Division in the first quarter of the 20th century. One such slump ended in 1921, when the Gill Division won a U.S. government contract to produce 2 million pounds of postal card paper.
In July 1921, the company sent one of its book paper machines to the Graphic Arts Exposition in Chicago. The machine the company sent was not the large 152" machine, but the smallest manufactured in the world. It measured 9' long and could be trucked in pieces and reassembled on a table.
On March 9, 1927, the company announced a temporary shutdown. The loss of the U.S. government's postal card contract caused the shutdown. This led to the loss of 100 jobs, and some workers were reassigned to other AWP mills.
The shutdown lasted 3 years; the plant reopened in August 1930, and production started in October that year. The company sold its 152" Fourdrinier machine, which had produced the book paper, to a company in the western U.S. AWP transferred its coarser paper production to the Gill Division from its Eagle-A plant in Windsor, Connecticut.
In 1931, AWP's remaining divisions were all located in Holyoke. In 1933, the Gill Division produced matchbook covers, and AWP's Crocker Division added printing. That year, AWP moved machinery and equipment from the former AWP plant in Windsor, which closed in 1930, in case the Gill Division needed it for future production.
In 1936, the company produced matchboard for the Diamond Match Co. in Springfield.
During World War II, the company ran 2 shifts over 16 hours because of a labor shortage. Many employees were drafted or enlisted.
By 1962, AWP had only nine paper-making machines. Most of the work took place in the Linden, Crocker, Albion, Mt. Tom, Nonotuck, and Gill Divisions.
AWPCo had been up for sale for some time. On December 29, 1962, AWPCo sold its remaining 6 divisions to the Brown Company, netting shareholders $33 per share, more than the $28 per share offered by Writco, a newly formed corporation. By 1969, only 4 divisions remained: Gill, Crocker, Albion, and Nonotuck.
On June 4, 1971, the Gill Division closed, and some of the remaining 25 employees transferred to other Brown divisions; others accepted unemployment benefits. The paper-making plants struggled to survive, and additional financial outlays to meet anti-pollution requirements accelerated closures. Within one year, the Valley Paper Co., Franklin Paper Co., and Gill Division had all closed.
Citations:
Newspapers.com (paid subscription): Citations: Holyoke (Massachusetts) Transcript & Transcript-Telegram; publication dates and pages are shown.
Ancestry.com (paid subscription): Genealogy Records and Price & Lee, Holyoke, Massachusetts, City Directories
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