Page 45 - The Hunt Winter 2021

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them faded away long ago. Starting in the early 1800s, the Marshall and Garrett families owned mills on both sides of Red Clay Creek in Yorklyn, producing snuff, paper and fibers. Spread out in an assortment of brick buildings over the corpses of former mills, NVF was the most recent occupant. Once a prime manufacturer of vulcanized fiber, it faded slowly, limping along for years before closing for good in 2009.
NVF’s was not a graceful exit. For decades, drivers along Creek Road have watched as buildings on both
sides of the stream—including one that juts almost into the road as a target for inattentive drivers—have suffered from neglect, frequent flooding and even fires, including one this past April that gutted an abandoned facility. Just off Bridge Road, another facility that manufactured paper from cloth fibers is preserved like an industrial Pompey, left as it was when workers quit its huge presses after their final shift, never to return. The NVF facility is now being integrated into the new Auburn Valley State Park.
NVF’s was not a graceful exit. For decades, drivers along Creek Road have watched
as buildings on both sides of the stream have suffered from neglect, frequent flooding and even fires.
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