Knox Woolen Mill — Endless Felt and the Paper Industry
Near Camden, Maine
In a stone building along the Megunticook River, Camden's most consequential industrial employer operated for more than a century. The Knox Woolen Company, founded around the time of the Civil War, made woolen felt, the kind used to carry wet paper pulp through the papermaking process. They called their product endless felt because it was woven in a continuous loop, and at the height of the company's output, many paper mills in New England were running Knox felt through its machines.
The innovation that made Knox Woolen famous was an early seamless, endless papermakers' felt. Ordinary woven material had seams that left marks on the paper. Knox Woolen's version did not. It was a small technical achievement with large practical consequences, and the paper industry adopted it rapidly. The company was known as a major manufacturer of papermakers' felt.
The mill complex sat on the river that powered it, using the drop from the Camden Hills to drive its looms. The mill closed in nineteen eighty eight, ending the last major industrial operation in Camden. The stone buildings along the river survive and have been converted to other uses. The river still runs at the same grade it always did, but nothing is harnessed to it now.
