Originally built in the 1890s, finally abandoned in 1998, Kalamazoo's Allied Paper Mill (a.k.a. Bryant Paper Mill, Performance Papers, Portage Paper, etc.…) has been almost entirely demolished. Of the once sprawling complex, only the powerhouse remains.
The Crown Vantage Parchment Mill closed on November 3rd, 2000 but was kept under active security until they finally auctioned off the mill's equipment in June of 2003. Most of the pictures on the site were taken on the day of the auction, so you get to see all the machines and equipment the way they were when the factory was running. Featured in the tour are the two gigantic mill buildings (Mill 1 and Mill 2), and the gas/oil Power Plant. Unlike Allied's power plant, the turbines, generators and all of the control equipment were still present at the time the pictures were taken.
The paper mill in the small town of Watervliet was torn down before we got a chance to do much exploration there. However, one of my friends did take a few pictures of the mill on one occasion, so they are presented here for your viewing enjoyment. It is too bad that we never got to explore this mill more thoroughly, as it looked like a very interesting place.
Much of the McLouth steel mill in Trenton MI had been torn down by the time I found out about it. However, several facilities remained and are featured here, including blast furnace stoves, a power plant / hot blast compressor facility, hot strip rolling mill, the ruins of a 146+ MW elelectric induction reheat furnace, an intact 500,000,000 BTU/hr reheat furnace, and more.
