This week’s dive into the archives at the Cochrane Public Library brings us an Iroquois Falls story. It was in the Northland Post on February 24th, 1982, from its sister paper– The Enterprise – and written by a young reporter named McIntyre.
It was about the giant number-8 newsprint machine being built at Abitibi-Price.
Assistant mill manager Frank O’Callaghan remarked that the machine designed in Finland was ‘way bigger in every sense’ than the existing seven newsprint-making machines.
Library archivist Ardis Proulx-Chedore reads to us, just how big.
“It is 372 inches wide at the wire, while the biggest existing machine is only 220 inches wide, and the four machines being phased out average about 145 inches wide.”
The project was worth $111-million and said to be on schedule to start the machine on September 1st.
(Cochrane Public Library Archives)
O’Callaghan said the newsprint would be superior and allow for better printing on both sides.
“Providing a better product in such a way will assist Abitibi-Price in maintaining its position in the marketplace and keep pace with the competition for newsprint supply contracts.”
The downside would be the phasing out of four other paper machines that had been in operation since the 1920s.
Cochrane and area history is preserved in the archives at the Cochrane Public Library.
