Eric Kelly’s team pop another big one.
Today’s implosion of the Louisiana Mill boiler tower brought to a symbolic close an era that spanned almost a century.
International Paper Co., formed in New York in 1898, expanded into Canada and the South during the 1920s. The company purchased the Bastrop Pulp & Paper Co. in 1927, the same year that saw construction of the Rose Theatre, a new Bastrop City Hall and the campus now known as the Historic Bastrop High School. IP subsidiary Continental Paper & Bag Corp. began production at the Bag Pak plant next door to the mill in the same year. Cullen went on to become president of IP in 1936, and the Louisiana Mill continued to grow and diversify in the following decades. Outpaced by new technology, the Bastrop Mill closed in 1982 after 61 years in operation.
The boiler tower – shot by Advanced Explosive Demolition earlier today – was built in 1992 and has since served as the most prominent visual symbol of the company’s integral presence in the community.
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