Schenck's Dream

            On Jan. 6, 1928, a bronze memorial plaque on the front of the GNP administration building was unveiled in honor of Garret Schenck. The unveiling took place on the day of his funeral in Weston, Massachusetts. The plaque reads “To Garret Schenck, Founder and for Thirty Years President of the Great Northern Paper Company. He Planned and Constructed the Paper Mills at Millinocket, East Millinocket, East Madison and Madison, adding Much That Was Original in the Development of the Art of Making News Print Paper. As an Expression of Their Admiration and Friendship this Tablet is Erected by the Employees of the Company. He Died in Service Jan. 3, 1928.”

            The unveiling was attended by an assemblage of employees, citizens and school children. The information appeared in a January article in the Bangor Daily News along with photos of the plaque and the crowd at the unveiling. (is the plaque still there??)

             A partial news article from a Portland Press Herald newspaper (approx. 1925), was donated a while ago by a person with access to the former GW MacKay home in Millinocket. One front page header reads, Millinocket, Paper City, Carved from the Wilderness. It continues, “Dream of Garret Schenck Becomes Reality – Wilderness Turned into Hive of Industry.” Without Schenck, Millinocket & East Millinocket might not exist. Some of Schenck’s story follows. (from McLeod’s The Northern)

            From New Jersey (Dutch descent, worked in paper mill there), he came to Orono, Maine to manage a paper mill. Then he was at Rumford Falls Paper Co/later International Paper where he was manager/director and VP. Upon leaving Rumford in 1898, he joined with Mullen, Prentiss and Haskell to form the Northern Development Company. Mullen had been busy securing land in the area that would become Millinocket & East Millinocket. The name Great Northern Paper Company was approved by the Maine Legislature in 1899 and Schenck became president of the company.

            Schenck brought into the company many of the men that made it grow, including Hardy Ferguson, who was given the task to design the mill that would become the largest in the world.

            Schenck officially started up the Millinocket mill on Nov. 1, 1900, by opening the gate that turned the water upon the turbines. “Then he opened the switch that turned the electricity from the dynamos to the motor that set in operation the machinery in the wood preparing room of the mill. Then, to the wood room and pulled the lever of the log carrier to convey logs from the pond, then another lever to lower the saw blade to the log (cut 2 ft. lengths). He then barked one of the pieces, threw it into the conveyor, then at the grinder room, placed the wood piece into the pocket of the grinder, pulled the lever to force the wood upon the stone where it was ground in a jiffy.”

            Schenck “was not in favor of a company town with a lot of rowhouses such as had been built around textile mills, and he insisted the Company be in control of the situation and determine what was to be built and where.” (McLeod book)

            A school in North Anson was named after Schenck and the high school in East Millinocket is named for Schenck’s son, Garret Schenck, Jr.