Following the completion of the Middle Canal in 1891 to carry necessary processing water from the Androscoggin River, several paper-related companies were established in Rumford. This image from about 1900, shows those companies.

They included the Rumford Falls Sulphite Company, established in 1892, capable of producing 40 tons of sulphite pulp per day; the Rumford Falls Paper Company, which was producing up to 60 tons of paper per day when it began operation on July 12, 1893; the Fort Hill Chemical Company, functioning by 1895; the Continental Bag Company, incorporated in 1899 and almost immediately producing 1,000,000 paper bags per day; the International Paper Company in 1898, and the Rumford Falls Envelope Factory, which was started in the late 1890s.

By December, 1899, contracts for the construction of Oxford Paper Company under the ownership of Hugh J. Chisholm, et al, were awarded, and a new era of paper-making began in Rumford.