179 Food in Paper, Food in Boxes

This week, since the episode is all about the transition from rag paper to wood paper and how that change would reverberate through the food world, I went hunting for a paper mill, or more likely the ruins of one, that was languishing under the aegis of the National Park Service.

And there is at least one! Not much of a surprise since I am coming to understand that the NPS holds a piece of just about everything that has made a significant change to United States history.

I mean, how many years until a container ship port or coal-powered electrical generation station becomes part of the collection? I mean, there's already coal veins, mines, and docks as part of the parks.

So why not these as our world shifts some more? But anyway, yes, I found the ruins of a paper mill that is now part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, just north of Atlanta and east of Marietta, Georgia.

The ruins of the Marietta paper mill on the banks of Soapy Creek is a prime example of how our modern use of power and transportation technology, along with changes in paper tech, have caused once bustling locations to become lost in the wilderness.

Built starting in 1855 and going into operation in 1857, this paper mill began life as a rag mill, as paper in America was still exclusively made from cotton and linen waste.

Its placement on a creek was essential to its existence as water power was used to pound the rags to transform them into paper.

As wood pulp paper tech came into use, the mill switched to grinding the plentiful pine wood of the area into wood chips that would be digested for use in new wood paper.

The cloth waste business turned to producing twine, which became important as paper parcels and cardboard boxes would be bound with twine before tape.

appeared on the packaging scene.

However, as rail travel and later road travel took the role of industrial transportation away from water transport, the Marietta Paper Mill went from a bustling location to a weird factory a long way away.

The shift to steam and later electrical power for industrial machines also meant that the location of a factory on a water course to access power was superfluous.

though many, many, many factories would continue to be located next to rivers and other bodies of water as a way to dispose of industrial waste.

But that is a different problem for a different time.

The Chattahoochee River is now known mainly as a spot for recreation, but for most of American history, it was a bustling highway of commerce.

And the Marietta Paper Plant up the Soapy Creek at the top of Sibley Forest was part of the bustle.

So to go see a reminder of when this part of Georgia countryside was more about bustle and not so much a vacation land, make part of your visit to the Chattahoochee Recreation Area a stop at the ruins of the Marietta Paper Mill.

Episode 179, Food in Paper, Food in Boxes.

Hello, and welcome to the History of American Food.

This week, I'll be looking at how our national relationship with food changed when paper became cheap.

Well, cheaper, anyway.

Our ideas about how we purchased and stored food as well as what we were willing to accept as clean and known would all be altered once paper and cardboard boxes started to be used to wrap and carry our food.

To find out how, pull up to your place at the table and let's dig in.