by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
A project to help commemorate a historical foundation of the City of Sartell received the blessing of the Sartell City Council at its last meeting.
The city’s paper mill, founded in 1906, became an economic bedrock of the city, even helping spawn the other economic giant along the river – the DeZurik valve company.
Dennis Molitor, long-time Sartell resident, was employed by the paper mill for 38 years and has long been keen on keeping the memory of the historic company alive.
Four years ago, on Memorial Day morning, an explosion at the mill killed an employee, led to a fire and forced the mill to close forever. It was and is considered the saddest day in Sartell’s history, and many people who had worked there for years, generations of them, mourned the plant’s demise.
At the Oct. 24 city-council meeting, Molitor updated council members about his commemoration plan, which he had previously presented to the council months ago. The plan now involves the installation of three “dryer gears” from the old plant in front of the wrought-iron fence in Veterans’ Park high above the Mississippi River and right across the river from the paper-mill site. The three gears, large wheel-like structures about three feet high, will be installed on heavy-duty supports. The gears are from the original mill building that was built in 1906. On the wheels will be attached story boards with photos and text explaining various parts of the process of making quality paper: the hydro-electric dam and plant, the wood yard, the paper machines, maintenance and more.
The project components will be installed east of the parking lot and south of the Veterans’ Monument and gazebo in the park.
Molitor told the council he and others have succeeded in raising close to $6,000 for the project, estimated to cost about $6,500. He praised Joe Schulte for his research and help with the project. Schulte is an industrial-arts teacher in Sartell who previously created a paper-mill commemoration artwork that is affixed to the wrought-iron fence in Veterans’ Park, the same fence near which the gears will be placed. Schulte’s artwork, done in the sky-blue of the mill, is a silhouette of the mill and was fashioned from a sheet of paper-mill steel. When viewers see the silhouette artwork, they can “see” how the mill looked like exactly from that same vantage position in Veteran’s Park.
Schulte’s artwork is one of about a half dozen that was created from remnants of the old mill to adorn public places in Sartell. After the explosion, American Iron and Metal razed the vast site, recycling most of the scrap. It is now flat and empty, a mere memory.
Molitor said the new installations will be durable, low-maintenance objects that will not impose on the park’s functions or the parking lot. The project, he said, will be done in conjunction with help and advice from city staff.
Molitor told the council he hopes to have the project completed by next spring. Hopefully, he added, it can be unveiled in that same park during the next Memorial Day service, which will be five years from the date of the tragic mill explosion. The explosion occurred shortly after the Memorial Day service ended on that day.
The city council voted unanimously 4-0 (former member Amy Braig-Lindstrom is no longer on the council) to approve Molitor’s commemoration project.
This is the art work, a paper-mill silhouette, created by Joe Schulte that is displayed in Veterans’ Park right across the river where the historic paper plant used to be.
For more than a century, the paper mill in Sartell was a familiar sight.
