The family of Charles Jaite immigrated from Germany in the late 19th Century, and by the age of 13 the young man secured a position at a paper company in Cleveland, Ohio. The United States was still experiencing a boom in paper manufacturing, due to improvements in pulp proccessing, fourdrinier machines, and allied technology, and thus Jaite found ample opportunity for advancement in the field- eventually obtaining the position of President at the Standard Bag and Paper Company in 1902, followed by the Cleveland Paper Company, but when these two firms consolidated their interests as the Cleveland-Akron Paper Company (located in Boston, Ohio), he maintained his office for only a few years before resigning to pursue the construction of his own mill, just a short distance to the north along the Cuyahoga River.

The Jaite Paper Company was founded on September 18, 1905, financially backed by Charles Jaite and his family, and construction of the mill was begun immediately. The property consisted of 22.76 acres along the Cuyahoga, adjacent to the Ohio and Erie Canal, Brandywine Creek, and a short distance from a railway line running between Cleveland and Akron; The land, quite inexpensive due to its isolation in the valley, also included reserves of both natural gas and artesian spring water, wells for which were immediately drilled (perhaps exaggerating the matter, some believed that the artesian water made paper "many points stronger than paper made with ordinary water," as was claimed in the Centennial History of Summit County). The paper mill itself was built by local residents (most of them farmers by trade), with the primary material being sand from the river, which was dredged and made into concrete blocks on site.

Even as the first product, called "Blue Line Paper" and used for flour bags, was rolling off the line of cylinder machines, workers continued to add to the size of the mill; By 1919 they were also making fertilizer bags and bread sacks, and by 1926 (with the addition of two fourdrinier machines) Jaite began manufacturing multi-layered cement bags, becoming the 11th largest U.S. producer of multi-wall paper through the next two decades. Early in the mill's history, Jaite recognized the need for housing his employees and purchased land on Riverview Road 1n 1906 and along Vaughn Road in 1917, building a series of small houses and a dormitory, and also a general store, post office, and railway station. Charles Jaite himself lived some distance away on Hines Hill Road, and many employees resided in the nearby towns of Peninsula and Boston, but the Company Town served an important function through the Depression, which was interestingly the peak era of production at the mill.

By 1933, approximately 250 people were employed by the Jaite Company Mill, among them a large number of Polish immigrants, who like Jaite himself came to America seeking such opportunities; Women made up one third of the workforce, and it was their job to assemble the finished product by sewing up bags (this meant that the mill also required a thread room, in addition to the usual areas found in paper manufacturing facilities). Jaite was now running 24 hours a day, each day producing 8 tons of paper, and compared to the economic hardships faced elsewhere in the country, this translated into a remarkable level of prosperity for residents of the valley who were able to obtain steady employment, reasonably priced housing, and often worked alongside their own family members.

Following the Second World War, the American paper industry saw the construction, especially in the South, of huge modern facilities against which smaller independent firms like Jaite found it difficult to compete. Thus, in 1951, the property was sold to National Container Corporation, and then to Owens-Illinois, and finally to Tecumseh. This Michigan-based company made paper for corrugated boxes for a short period, but finally closed down the mill in 1984, marking the end of its production history.

In 1975, agents from the Department of the Interior arrived in the valley and began to acquire property which would eventually become the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Although the Jaite Mill would continue to operate for several more years, the region encompassing the property of the factory, railroad spur, and company town were entered into the National Registry of Historic Places in 1979. Following the exit of the Tecumseh Company, the National Park Service was able to purchase the area in 1985, at which point they extensively rehabilitated the company town buildings for use as park offices, a function which they continue to serve to this day.

The National Park Service, however, was not always as carefully attentive to the matter of preserving the Jaite Company Paper Mill itself. HABS/HAER conducted surveys of the site (including making detailed maps and drawings), the park used the building to house temporary offices for the Cuyahoga Scenic Railway, and plans were made to lease the structure to someone interested in adaptive reuse. Unfortunately, the only promising offer made for the Jaite Mill was by a somewhat dubious firm who had the rather incredible objective of converting it into an indoor horseshoe venue. This plan collapsed quickly due to lack of investors, and the structure was simply surrounded with a chain link fence, "No Trespassing" signs were posted about the perimeter, and the property was left unattended as the Park Service debated the matter of both how to interpret the history of this industrial landmark, as well as how to pay for its maintenance and renovation. On October 2, 1992, a fire damaged some sections of the mill, or as the NPS puts it in their own words, "destroyed further hopes of rehabilitating or using the area." Although there was certainly some structural damage and exposed environmental hazards (all of which would have needed brownfield remediation, regardless), the major path of destruction was by and large confined to several of the more recently constructed buildings, such as the rolled paper storage areas, while most of the remainder (comprising the earliest construction periods of 1905 to 1928) was left largely intact. Thus, with proper maintenance, the most historically sensitive and important components of the Jaite Mill could still have been preserved.

Despite the great educational potential which the mill still possessed, a variety of factors (not the least of which being ongoing reductions in the NPS budget) caused its stewards to cancel any plans for adaptive reuse, and in an act of final abandonment, officially removed the mill itself from the "Jaite Mill Historic District." For another decade the property remained dormant while the park attempted to secure funds for demolition (or "Natural Restoration," as they call it). Midway through this period, the photographs comprising Maproom Systems' tour of the mill were taken, and Jaite became the first entry in our own Historic Registry. As a result of a legal settlement involving the clean up of the Kriecji Dump, a polluted site in the Valley, the Park Service obtained the needed funds for initiating the demolition of the Jaite Company Mill.

Following the Mill's 100th anniversary, demolition work began in March of 2006, and the first phase is almost complete; The entirety of the mill has been removed, soil is currently being remediated, and eventually the area will be made accessible to the public. Tentative plans suggest that the fourdrinier line will be kept largely intact and provided with a temporary covering to protect it from the elements, and will eventually serve as an interpretive device. The iconic water tower was evaluated for structural integrity and, based on those findings, was torn down in June. Finally, a loose plan for "Maintaining the footprint of the Mill" has been initiated, although it is unclear whether this means a site-wide preservation of foundation lines for all rooms and buildings, or simply markers at the extremities which will loosely indicate the mill's overall proportions.

The fragment above and to the right of this text is a sample of paper made at Jaite, most likely produced by the Tecumseh Corrugated Box Company. The photograph at the top of this page shows the last roll of paper made at the mill.