New Indy Ivex Specialty Paper has a few sister companies that are all owned by New Indy! The Hartford City Mill is located in a small rural town of Indiana. Hartford City is located about ninety miles north of Indianapolis and forty five miles south of Fort Wayne. Richard Pratt purchased the facility in late 1987 and began to ship in paper machine components from Camas, Washington in early 1988. From 1988 through early March 1990 the paper machine was rebuilt while a new machine room was being erected to house the rebuilt machine. The mill was started up in late March 1990 and operated for at 180 tons per day producing Corrugated Medium from 100% recycled material for the Midwest.
The mill ramped up production through a series of upgrades to eventually work up to a 350 tons per day. In 1994, Pratt acquired Migler, Inc., a recycling group led by Mike Friskney, to give the mill a competitive advantage in the raw material collection portion of the business. In 1999, the paper mill and the recycling group was acquired by a private equity group, Atlas Holdings, and changed the name of the mill to Hartford City Paper.
As is typical for the paper industry, production was increased over the course of the twenty-five years of operation. In 1994, a stock prep upgrade was done with new screening equipment and some dewatering equipment. A new Valmet press section was installed in 1995 along with a winder rebuild and a new roll handling system. In 2007, the fourdrinier, dryers, and reel drives were converted from Seimens D.C. drives to G.E. A.C drives while the press section was converted from Seimens to G.E. but left as D.C. A used stainless steel Voith Head box and a stainless steel MecFab Fourdrinier was acquired from a shutdown Domtar mill in Cornwall, ON. Hartford City installed the headbox in October of 2008 and completed the fourdrinier rebuild in October of 2014.
The Hartford City mill now operates at an average capacity of 367 tons per day producing 90% medium (18lb./1000 – 36lb./1000), 8% Red Rosin (20lb./1000 – 25lb./1000), and 2% recycled Kraft grades (50lb./3000 – 70lb./3000). The mill carries certifications for the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFC), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).