Glen Mills and the Paper That Fooled Counterfeiters

This Chester County valley has been an industrial site since the colonial era. John Taylor built Sarum Forge here around seventeen thirty-nine, and just seven years later erected Pennsylvania's first iron-slitting mill, a device that cut iron bars into rods for nail-making.

Ninety years after that, the Willcox family took over the property and shifted to papermaking. From eighteen sixty-four to eighteen seventy-eight, this mill produced the paper used for United States currency. The paper was manufactured with secret processes designed to defeat counterfeiters, and it earned an international reputation for its quality and security. By the time the railroad station was built here in eighteen eighty-two, Glen Mills had evolved into a busy commercial village, layering industry upon industry across more than a century of American economic life.