name is intriguing. History has it that the Company was originally
founded on the West Virginia side of the North Branch of the Poto-
mac River at Piedmont, West Virginia, where it constructed the first
commercially successful chemical woodpulp mill in this country. Well
it took a few years for Mother Nature to hear about all this. But
when she finally realized that this pioneering development would lit-
erally transform the paper industry by substituting abundantly avail-
able wood for the limited supply of rags as the industry's chief raw
material; when she understood that this development would lead
directly to today's multi-billion dollar pulp and paper industry, she
was thoroughly impressed. She decided to do something nice for the
little company to help it in its early struggles. So she arranged a flash
flood back in the hills that changed the course of the river, and over-
night moved the new company within the bounds of our State of
Maryland.

Once here, the Company couldn't very well change its name and
risk insulting its next door neighbor. But once in Maryland, it grew
and prospered. That original mill which produced 10 tons a day in
1888 was expanded and modernized many times through the years,
until today it is one of the worlds largest and most efficient fine
paper mills, capable of producing about 1, 000 tons a day of the finest
printing and publication papers available anywhere in the world.

In addition to the paper mill at Luke and the Research Center
we are dedicating here today, the Company also operates a corru-
gated box plant at Baltimore. Taken together, just these three oper-
ations provide jobs for 2, 600 people, with salaries, wages and bene-
fits of more than $20 million a year. The Company pays some $425, -
000 in State and local taxes, and pumps an additional |5 million
into our economy through the local purchase of raw materials, sup-
plies and services, thus creating and supporting even more jobs and
income.

A large part of this growth must be credited to the continuous
flow of new products and manufacturing processes coming from West
Virginia Pulp and Paper's long tradition of successful research. It is
significant that this program of organized research, one of the ear-
liest in the paper industry, also began here in Maryland. Today, the
Company has a scientific research staff of 220 persons and operates
two other research centers as well as two pilot and development lab-
oratories.

The Company has one of the paper industry's outstanding records

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