Jake Mannion "Super" in front of machinery, factory startup — circa 1934 — #66074_4
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Photograph Copyright Anderson & Middleton Company
United States — Washington (State) — Hoquiam
Grays Harbor Pulp & Paper Co.
Thanks to Stephanie Mannion Wrightson for providing this information about her paternal grandfather: "John 'Jake' Cornelius Mannion with his wife, Sadie Feirer Mannion, and six children moved from Erie, PA to Aberdeen, WA in 1929 when he was asked by Hammermill to run the paper mill in Hoquiam. He was born in Neenah, WI 20 Aug 1885 to John and Bertha Henning Mannion. At about age 14, he quit school to work for the Kimberly-Clark Paper Company in Neenah and, subsequently, moved to run a paper mill in Erie. Jake spent many years studying a correspondence course in pulp and paper making despite the adverse conditions created by a household of noisy children. Most of the family - his generation and the one before him - were paper makers. He was very much a man's man: bowled as often as he could (in championship competition), big game hunting, salmon and steelhead fishing, and loved razor clam digging. He belonged to the Hoquiam Elks Club, and he spent lunch breaks there playing bridge for pretty high stakes. Every time he got a chance, he played golf. Depsite his retirement at age 67, quite often the paper machines would break down, and he would be called in, even during the night, after it was determined that no one else could fix them. He was always right there. He died in Aberdeen on 16 March 1961 and is buried at Fern Hill Cemetery."
The Grays Harbor Pulp & Paper plant was opened in 1929. In 1937 three Olympic Peninsula mills (Port Angeles, Shelton, and Grays Harbor) joined together to form Rayonier, Inc. but the paper from Grays Harbor continued to be sold under the Hammermill name. The pulp and paper operations were spun off into separate operations in 1959, and a few years later Hammermill bought back into the paper mill in a joint venture with ITT Rayonier. International Paper bought Hammermill in 1986, and the mill was put up for sale in 1992. When a buyer could not be found, the mill was closed in October 1992, throwing 650 area residents out of work. In December of 1993, a group of local investors restarted the paper mill portion of the plant as Grays Harbor Paper, L.P. producing fine papers from purchased bleached kraft wood pulp.
