For 100 years, from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century, manufacturing was the foundation of Fulton's diverse growth and prosperity, driven by hydropower from the Oswego Falls and rapids, shaped by dams and the Oswego and Barge Canals, and resilient enough that the city's range of businesses helped cushion it during the Great Depression. Among the industries that prospered were packaging and paper manufacturing, beginning with the Oswego Falls Pulp and Paper Company, founded in 1883 by Forrest Weeks, whose river-powered mills produced newsprint, wrapping paper, wallpaper, and paperboard known as Fulton Board; that paperboard was used for milk bottle caps, and a container first called Liquid-Tight and later renamed Sealrights became so successful that the Sealright Company was incorporated as a subsidiary in 1917, with later growth leading eventually to sale to Huhtamaki, which remained one of the city's largest employers and supplied packaging for the food industry, including Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Textile manufacturing was also central, as Fulton Worsted Mills made worsted cloth as early as 1860 and the American Woolen Company operated from 1899 to 1952 in a large riverfront complex powered wholly by hydropower through a raceway using 2 million gallons of water per day to heat and light its 6.6-acre facilities; at its peak it employed more than 2,000 workers, including men, women, and children as young as 12, and for 90 years Fulton fabrics supplied uniform cloth for troops in the Civil War, Spanish American War, and World War I and II, with some estimates placing production at 8 1/2 million yards valued at more than $20 million. Other major employers included Hunter Arms Company, founded in 1889 by John Hunter and his sons, which became known for the craftsmanship and engraving of L.C. Smith double-barrel shotguns, improved automatic ejectors and single triggers, also made bicycles and fans through Hunter Fan and Motor Company, and closed after Marlin Firearms purchased it and a floor collapse halted its long production. Nestlé chose Fulton in 1900 for its first U.S. milk processing plant because of the abundance and quality of local dairy farms, and in 1906 the plant became the first site in the U.S. to produce milk chocolate on a large scale; over time technicians there developed products including the Nestle Crunch Bar, Toll House Morsels, and Nestlé Quik, the plant at its peak made 1 million pounds of candy per day and employed 1,500 workers, and it closed in May 2003 after a century of expansion and production.