Heron Bay pictures and reports, 1936 - 1937

Construction of a second paper mill in Canada, on the north shore of the lower St. Lawrence River, was begun in the spring of 1936 despite the fact that the world was in the midst of a deep depression. Having signed a lease to the property in 1923 which required the Tribune Company to build a mill for the manufacture of woodpulp or newsprint within seven years (at later intervals postponed), and realizing that the lease could not be extended indefinitely unless this provision were fulfilled, the Tribune Company in 1935 made the decision to build an integrated pulp and paper mill at Baie Comeau the next spring. Tribune circulation was growing and that of the New York Daily News was rising to unexpected heights, and this also influenced the decision to go ahead with construction.

Robert R. McCormick was as vitally concerned with the Baie Comeau project as he had been 23 years earlier with the mill at Thorold, Ontario. This collection reflects his deep interest and involvement at each step of the planning and construction. Though busy in Chicago with affairs of the Tribune, he made many trips to Baie Comeau and carried on a voluminous correspondence with those responsible for the on-the-spot activities. They in turn sent frequent letters, progress reports, cost and shipping reports, blueprints, specifications, charts and maps, and many photographs, all of which reflect in minute detail the beginnings of the North Shore Paper Company and the permanent planned community which grew up around it.

Warren Curtis, Jr., son of a family prominent in the affairs of the International Paper Company and designer of the Thorold mill, had been president of the Ontario Paper Company for many years before his death in 1930. In 1933 Arthur A. Schmon assumed the presidency, and the largest part of the corresondence in this collection is between Schmon and McCormick.