Champion Hamilton Mill / Industry Shifts and A Mill Revival

Side A: The Champion Coated Paper Company began production April 15, 1894, with less than a dozen employees under the direction of Peter Gibson Thomson (December 16, 1851-July 10, 1931). A Cincinnati businessman, bookseller, and publisher, Thomson recognized that recent changes in half-tone printing would increase the demand for coated paper. In 1893, he acquired the patent rights to a card coating machine, incorporated his new company, and set-aside 45 acres along Seven Mile Pike (now North B Street) to build a plant that would coat paper produced by other mills in the Great Miami Valley. The Champion Hamilton Mill shipped its first coated paper order on May 4, 1894. Within a few years, Thomson had dramatically increased plant capacity and, by 1900, Champion was regarded as the largest coated paper mill in the country. Side B: During its early years, Hamilton’s Champion Mill survived two floods (1898, 1913) and two fires (1901, 1913) and continued to thrive through World War II. After the 1960 death of Reuben B. Robertson Jr., the company gradually passed out of family control, ushering in an era of downsizing, mergers, and name changes. In 1967, Champion merged with U.S. Plywood and became Champion International Corporation in 1972. SMART Papers purchased the facility from International Paper in 2000, but closed it in 2012. The City of Hamilton acquired the property, and, in 2016, partnered with Spooky Nook Sports, Inc., to transform the site into a sports, hotel, and conference complex. The historically restored No. 2 Mill opened in April 2022, reinvented as Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill.