"Can't Is Not in the Camp's Vocabulary"

Paul and James Camp began P.D. Camp and Company, a lumber business, in 1877. After buying R.J. Neely's sawmill in 1886, they established Camp Manufacturing Company in 1887. Its original Franklin mill was steam powered and stood on a ten-acre tract beside the Blackwater River and the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad. Known for quality, the company expanded steadily, enlarging its plant and adding smooth-dressed lumber in 1891, then acquiring more mills and woodlands from 1896 to 1907. Although the Panic of 1907 shook the business, it recovered and bought additional mills and timberland in Virginia and the Carolinas. As Franklin's largest employer, it kept its timber operations going during the depression and opened a pulp and paper plant in 1937. In the 1940s, by then a publicly held corporation, it began making grocery bags and waterproof paper. In 1951 it built a white paper plant, and in 1956 it merged with a New York firm to form Union Bag - Camp Paper. Traded on the New York Stock Exchange, it became Union Camp Corporation in 1966 and continued to grow until International Paper bought Union Camp in 1999. The Camp family also strongly shaped Franklin and Southampton County through employment and through civic, charitable, and political leadership.

Franklin, Virginia · United States