Coronation
A cold March breeze blows down the street, a person walks his small dog, some kids play on the playground of the local middle school, in the backdrop of these lively people stands the enormous ruins of the Crown Vantage Paper Mill. Many of the locals complain about the presence of the site calling it things like an "eyesore" and "homeless encampment", unknown to many that pass it each day is that these ruins are the only reason this town exists in the first place.
In 1909 a man by the name of Jacob Kindleberger came to city of parchment from west Carleton Ohio looking to start a paper mill. Along the riverbank of the Kalamazoo River Jacob "Jake" discovered the ruins of an abandoned sugar beet factory. Over the following few years Jake would renovate the site into the "Kalamazoo Vegetable Parchment Company".
The original sugar beet factory was moderately fire damaged and suffered from many structural faults including major roof leaks which resulted in much of the original paper batches being damaged. This would become known as "Mill 1".
Due to the remoteness of the area KVPC was forced to construct it's own powerhouse, The original powerhouse operated a single 250 Horsepower boiler and a 50 HP steam engine which ran the lights and equipment inside.
For the first few years of its existence the small factory struggled with equipment and employee issues
oftentimes bleeding more money than it was making. The plant also suffered from major transportation difficulties due to the underdeveloped roads of Kalamazoo at the time.
As the third year came upon the small operation it quickly became apparent that some sort of housing arrangements would need to be set up at the plant in order for employees to be able to work full time. Due to the aforementioned transportation issues 12 families were posted up in tents near the plant and the founders were living out of the old plant office from the sugar beet company. Eventually 4 houses would be constructed forming the roots of what would become Parchment Michigan.
In the latter part of 1916 the mill was expanded to facilitate two paper machines, which sped things
up significantly, this began to form the final image of "Mill 1".
In 1921 the operators of KVPC had the dream of producing 1,000 feet of high quality paper per minute. To achieve this they constructed a massive modern facility known as "Mill 2" with the help of a man named Manahan. Unfortunately the early days of Mill 2 would be less than ideal and resulted in the plant having to scale back it's original plans. Eventually Mill 2 would find some success in the area of "wrapping paper".
At roughly the same time the city of parchment, with a population now of 511, was officially designated as a village in Kalamazoo. Parchment was almost completely financed by the paper mill similar to cities like Highland Park.
By the end of WW2 KVPC had over 1,700 employees making it one of the largest paper mills in the entire world. In 1960 KVPC would merge with Sutherland Paper Company who would merge again in 1966 with the Brown Company, who was eventually bought out by the James River Corporation in 1980 and became the "Crown Vantage paper Mill".
The Crown Vantage Paper Mill closed in 2000 leaving much of parchment without jobs. After it's abandonment the site would experience several fires including a major one in 2003 where a fire destroyed much of Mill 1 resulting in it being partially demolished. In 2018 it was found that the vacant site had contaminated the local drinking water with PFAS prompting an emergency cleanup. Today what stands of Mill 1 is being redeveloped while in 2019 the site of Mill 2 was purchased by the village of Parchment for $1. There is currently no future plans for the site, however at this point demolition seems likely.
I've been a fan of paper related sites my whole life, and after the disappointment at the Commerce Paper CO, I had been in the mood for a paper related place for the past few months. I originally planned to visit Crown Vantage as well as a few other places in the area however the other places didn't end up working out.
When I pulled up to the site I was disappointed to find that the site was crawling with city workers who appeared to be cutting down brush for some reason. It also appeared to be recess time at the school across the street meaning that faculty would likely be keeping an eye on the property to make sure no curious kids made their way over.
Due to the amount of sneaking I was going to have to do for what should have been an easy access site I was forced to leave my tripod behind which meant I would be having to take photos by hand, again.
None of these photos will truly do justice to the vastness of this place. It had also just finished raining so water was dripping all throughout the mill making a pleasant sound and unpleasant muck.
For some reason I decided that 33 degrees with high winds was perfect t-shirt weather which I quickly regretted. I wasn't able to get many exterior shots due to the workers moving about.
The mill opened up to a rather busy industrial complex which complicated my travel even more. It was clear that this building was well trekked making it feel similar to the Packard Plant or Cadillac Stamping Plant.
The power plant was quite a sight to behold, Photos don't do the size of the place justice, I wanted to climb to the top however I chickened out 3/4 of the way up after the stairs got a little too flexy and a bit too much of the floor was missing, not to mention I was alone.
The power plant was quite expansive and unfortunately dark, I am looking to purchase a better flashlight in the future to let me photograph dark places better.
After thoroughly freezing my fingers off and realizing I had destroyed most of my GoPro footage by selecting "Battery Saver" I began to head back to the hole in the fence I came from only to realize it was now blocked off by workers.
I decided to go back into the mill and get a few more shots to see if they would leave by then.
At this point the trucks had not moved, and in fact more where arriving than leaving, I decided that my only option was to run out of the site through the main gate that they had opened to drive the trucks in and out from.
The problem with my escape plan was I would have to time it just right in order to avoid getting spotted or hit by a passing truck leaving or entering the site, I also had to run through the area where Mill 1 was which had workers actively working at it. On my first escape attempt a truck was quickly approaching as I was attempting to begin my run forcing me to dive back inside a building.
For some reason I decided to pull out my phone and record the whole "Escape from Crown Vantage" however that ended up just looking like someone threw their phone down a flight of stairs. After checking that the coast was clear I sprinted for the exit and didn't look back. By sheer dumb luck nobody saw me and I made a clean getaway.
Anyways like always I hope you enjoyed this blog post, I explored something really cool earlier this month but am holding off on posting it due to the fact that last time I posted about an "Unknown place" it got tagged only a few days after.
Mutagen Out?