The Town of Milton, with its principal village of Ballston Spa, is today largely suburban with limited industry. One would almost wonder how the few that do exist even came to the area. Only someone with a passing interest in local history would know that these few businesses are the last vestiges of a once thriving industrial basin that for many decades distributed goods all over the world.

Ballston Spa had its beginnings as a tourist destination. In 1771 surveyors who were appointed to partition the Kayaderossera Patent stumbled upon a bubbling spring, later found to be a rare and much sought-after mineral spring. Word soon spread across the young country of this discovery, and although accommodations were primitive and the journey harsh, people began to make their way to Ballston to sample the “healing powers” of the spring. As more springs were discovered and the number of tourists grew, the area was developed with more appropriate lodgings, and within a few decades Ballston Spa became known as “America’s First Watering Place.”

Unfortunately, several of the springs failed, and Ballston was soon displaced by nearby Saratoga as the tourist destination of choice based on the number and strength of that city’s springs. However, the body of water that had provided the springs could also be used as an inexpensive and potentially valuable energy source. Thus, the industrial history of Ballston and greater Milton was born.

Although some mill activity had existed since the late 1700s, it was only when several entrepreneurs moved to the area and recognized the vast potential of the Kayaderosseras Creek that significant industrial development was made. This was greatly aided by the construction of a railroad in 1832 connecting Ballston with Schenectady, and a second railroad built several years later between Ballston and Troy.

With all of the ingredients in place for economic expansion – an educated and diverse employment base, favorable geography, an inexpensive power source, and efficient distribution system – industrial activity soared. By the late 1800s a variety of large factories were operating 24 hours a day producing hundreds of tons of finished goods per month. These included one of the world’s most successful paper bag mills, a world-renowned axe and scythe factory, and one of the country’s largest tanneries. Thousands of people were employed, and prosperity several times greater than the springs could provide was assured. The volume of business even prompted investors to construct a 12 mile-long electric railroad to transport raw materials to, and finished goods from, these businesses to the Delaware & Hudson Railroad interchange in Ballston Spa.

Perpetual prosperity from the paper mill and tool industries was not in the area’s destiny, however. Soon after the construction of the Ballston Terminal Railroad, the Scythe Factory burned to the ground, followed soon after by the Axe Works. A few years later, the Union Bag & Paper Company, a national corporation which had purchased a multitude of paper mills in the area, decided to consolidate operations elsewhere, leading to the eventual closure of most of its former mills. While some were reopened or utilized for other purposes, the activities of the survivors were largely curtailed. The small railroad that served the mills shut down in 1929, and the paper mill chapter of the Town of Milton passed into history, supplanted for a few more decades by clothing manufacturers.

Interest in this aspect of the town’s history has never faded, and in fact has perhaps grown as fewer and fewer relics from this era survive the tests of time. Luckily, some traces do exist. Cottrell Paper in Rock City Falls continues as a paper mill and uses the same building that was built by Chauncey Kilmer in 1859. The former Pioneer Mill in West Milton, Empire Mill in Rock City Falls, and Union Mill in Ballston Spa have also survived in some fashion, with the former Union Mill site even in use as retail space.

Compiling data for the businesses along the Kayaderosseras Valley is somewhat of a challenge as their histories, especially before the Civil War, are complex and sometimes contradictory among sources. Many of these industrial sites changed hands often, and documentation for parts of their histories are often difficult to find. Therefore, any book of this type will be incomplete, and perhaps at times confusing. However, the importance of this era is worth the effort, regardless of the gaps that are sure to crop up. With this in mind, Lost Industries of the Kaydeross Valley attempts to record the life and times of the businesses that shaped this area’s history, and hopefully preserve that history for future generations.