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RockTenn
RockTenn was an American paper and packaging manufacturer based in Norcross, Georgia. In 2015, it merged with MeadWestvaco to form the WestRock company.
It was one of North America's leading producers of corrugated and consumer packaging and recycling solutions, with annualized net sales of approximately $10 billion. The company employed approximately 26,000 people and operated more than 245 facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and China.
RockTenn Company was formed in 1973, the product of a merger between Tennessee Paper Mills Inc. and Rock City Packaging, Inc. Its origins date back to 1898, when the Rock City Box Company of Nashville, Tennessee, was founded. Among its customers in the mid-1940s were a local boot factory, a local candy manufacturer, a hosiery company, and several shirt manufacturers. The owners, Joe McHenry and A.E. Saxon, who also operated several other business ventures, wanted to sell out and retire. Rock City was attractive to Arthur Newth Morris, owner of the Southern Box Company, not least for its bank account of $60,000. Morris purchased the company in 1944 for $200,000, making a cash down payment of $50,000.[citation needed]
The 25-year-old Morris had been a printer and part-time Presbyterian minister when he went to work in 1926 for Edwin J. Schoettle, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, industrialist who owned a group of box and printing companies that bore his name. For a monthly salary of $350 Morris was expected to manage several hundred employees, some of them more than twice his age. He also traveled along the eastern seaboard, explaining to meat packers his discovery that they could avoid shrinkage of their hot dogs by putting them in Schoettle's boxes instead of stringing them up like bananas.
By 1935, Morris was making a salary on which he could comfortably support his wife and four children, but he wanted to go into business for himself. Armed with life savings of $5,000 and a $7,500 investment by his boss, he moved to Baltimore, Maryland. There he managed the J.E. Smith Box & Printing Co. during the day, while running the Southern Box Company, a company he founded in 1936, at night. Using Smith's presses, die-cutters, and other box making equipment during the evening, Morris began servicing two anchor customers who knew him from his Philadelphia days.
Only six months after Morris had left Philadelphia, Schoettle came to Baltimore to offer him a promotion and a $25,000 salary. When Morris refused, Schoettle offered to sell Morris his own majority share of Southern Box for $25,000. A bank loan to Morris made the deal possible. He moved to new quarters for $200 a month, left day-to-day management to one of his employees, and devoted himself to finding new accounts. In its first year the company made a few thousand dollars on sales of $60,000.
By 1942, Morris was doing well enough to open a corrugated box plant and to buy another Baltimore enterprise, the King Folding Box Co., where he installed a corrugated sheet cutter. Morris sold corrugated partitions to major glass companies, which needed them to separate the bottles and glasses they shipped. The following year the name of his enterprise was changed to Newth Morris Box Company. In 1944, another branch was opened in Jacksonville, Florida, where the company produced cardboard anti-radar devices for World War II American troops and popcorn boxes for movie theater owners. Following Morris's purchase of Rock City Box Co. that same year, he changed the name of Newth Morris Box Co. to Rock City Box Sales Company.
Morris's purchase of Rock City Box Co. put him in contact with one of its suppliers and his future merger partner: Tennessee Paper Mills. Andrew M. Tomlinson and John Stagmaier, two of Tennessee Paper's three founders, were Athens, Tennessee, businessmen who already owned box factories. The company's third founder was A.M. Sheperd of Vincennes, Indiana, a boxboard manufacturer. Tennessee Paper Mills was incorporated in 1917 with Stagmaier as president, Tomlinson as vice-president, and Sheperd as general manager. With $300,000 raised from stock offerings, the three men established a paperboard factory in Chattanooga, where operation began in July 1918. By the end of the year the new company had made a net profit of $23,367 on sales of $165,799.
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RockTenn
RockTenn was an American paper and packaging manufacturer based in Norcross, Georgia. In 2015, it merged with MeadWestvaco to form the WestRock company.
It was one of North America's leading producers of corrugated and consumer packaging and recycling solutions, with annualized net sales of approximately $10 billion. The company employed approximately 26,000 people and operated more than 245 facilities in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and China.
RockTenn Company was formed in 1973, the product of a merger between Tennessee Paper Mills Inc. and Rock City Packaging, Inc. Its origins date back to 1898, when the Rock City Box Company of Nashville, Tennessee, was founded. Among its customers in the mid-1940s were a local boot factory, a local candy manufacturer, a hosiery company, and several shirt manufacturers. The owners, Joe McHenry and A.E. Saxon, who also operated several other business ventures, wanted to sell out and retire. Rock City was attractive to Arthur Newth Morris, owner of the Southern Box Company, not least for its bank account of $60,000. Morris purchased the company in 1944 for $200,000, making a cash down payment of $50,000.[citation needed]
The 25-year-old Morris had been a printer and part-time Presbyterian minister when he went to work in 1926 for Edwin J. Schoettle, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, industrialist who owned a group of box and printing companies that bore his name. For a monthly salary of $350 Morris was expected to manage several hundred employees, some of them more than twice his age. He also traveled along the eastern seaboard, explaining to meat packers his discovery that they could avoid shrinkage of their hot dogs by putting them in Schoettle's boxes instead of stringing them up like bananas.
By 1935, Morris was making a salary on which he could comfortably support his wife and four children, but he wanted to go into business for himself. Armed with life savings of $5,000 and a $7,500 investment by his boss, he moved to Baltimore, Maryland. There he managed the J.E. Smith Box & Printing Co. during the day, while running the Southern Box Company, a company he founded in 1936, at night. Using Smith's presses, die-cutters, and other box making equipment during the evening, Morris began servicing two anchor customers who knew him from his Philadelphia days.
Only six months after Morris had left Philadelphia, Schoettle came to Baltimore to offer him a promotion and a $25,000 salary. When Morris refused, Schoettle offered to sell Morris his own majority share of Southern Box for $25,000. A bank loan to Morris made the deal possible. He moved to new quarters for $200 a month, left day-to-day management to one of his employees, and devoted himself to finding new accounts. In its first year the company made a few thousand dollars on sales of $60,000.
By 1942, Morris was doing well enough to open a corrugated box plant and to buy another Baltimore enterprise, the King Folding Box Co., where he installed a corrugated sheet cutter. Morris sold corrugated partitions to major glass companies, which needed them to separate the bottles and glasses they shipped. The following year the name of his enterprise was changed to Newth Morris Box Company. In 1944, another branch was opened in Jacksonville, Florida, where the company produced cardboard anti-radar devices for World War II American troops and popcorn boxes for movie theater owners. Following Morris's purchase of Rock City Box Co. that same year, he changed the name of Newth Morris Box Co. to Rock City Box Sales Company.
Morris's purchase of Rock City Box Co. put him in contact with one of its suppliers and his future merger partner: Tennessee Paper Mills. Andrew M. Tomlinson and John Stagmaier, two of Tennessee Paper's three founders, were Athens, Tennessee, businessmen who already owned box factories. The company's third founder was A.M. Sheperd of Vincennes, Indiana, a boxboard manufacturer. Tennessee Paper Mills was incorporated in 1917 with Stagmaier as president, Tomlinson as vice-president, and Sheperd as general manager. With $300,000 raised from stock offerings, the three men established a paperboard factory in Chattanooga, where operation began in July 1918. By the end of the year the new company had made a net profit of $23,367 on sales of $165,799.