HAMILTON — Papermaking has a long history along the Great Miami River, but the legacy is fading.

        On Thursday, the city learned that International Paper is closing its Knightsbridge office complex in Hamilton, costing 350 jobs and further eroding the area's ties to the paper industry. International Paper's two Hamilton mills are up for sale.

        Papermaking was intertwined with Hamilton's rise as a manufacturing center in the mid-19th century to early 20th.

        Peter G. Thomson founded Champion in 1894 to produce coated papers. By then, the city was already booming with factories that made everything from plows to safes.

        Champion and Beckett Paper, founded by William Beckett about 1848, continued to increase the city's employment. Great Miami paper mills sold large quantities of paper to printing companies in Cincinnati, a major 19th-century publishing center.

        According to Jim Blount, a Hamilton historian who has written about the city's old paper industry, Mr. Thomson realized the halftone process — needed for magazines and newspapers — was going to revolutionize the industry.

        By the early 1900s, the B Street factory featured 1.5 miles of rail lines, loading platforms that could accommodate nine freight cars at once and a plant that could produce 525,000 pounds of paper daily.

        The closing of International Paper's large office is only one of a number of major closings in Ham ilton since 1950. The city has lost most of its larger, older businesses, including Mosler Safe Co.'s factory, Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, Estate Stove and others.

        “Hamilton has followed the curve of other industrial towns,” said Marjorie Brown of the Butler County Historical Society Museum in Hamilton.

        When Champion's mill went up for sale, the historical society approached the firm about obtaining photographs and materials for the museum's archives, she said.

        “Once these companies are gone, they're gone,” she said. “We got some photos of Lesher Co. before it was torn down. We don't have a lot of space, but we should try to obtain and store whatever materials we can. We wouldn't want to see these things pitched.”

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