Patrick Eugene Kennedy was born on January 23, 1875 and died in 1961. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, he came to Alaska to work as a mining engineer and eventually settled in Juneau. He was assistant superintendent at the Treadwell Mine. In 1912, he married Teresa Keenan of San Francisco and they had two sons.

After laying the groundwork between 1912 and 1914, Kennedy and his partners in 1915 formed a corporation under the laws of California named the “Speel River Project.” Its purpose was to establish a power plant based on the “Norwegian plan” for electro-chemical factories. (Alaska Daily Empire, May 5, 1915). They planned to explore the possibility of chemical extraction in that region.

Subsequently, Kennedy helped organize the Alaska Pulp and Paper Company in 1920 at Speel River. According to the Douglas Island News (2/4/1921), “The first wood pulp manufactured in Alaska was made at Speel River by the Alaska Pulp and Paper Company on January 24. The shipment is to be forwarded to California for trial in the paper mills.” The product of the plant was sheets of pulp, described as resembling “…blotting paper that has become dampened.” After a promising beginning, low prices made the plant not viable. It seems to have closed after a year of operation. However, the company itself, after several attempts at revitalization, was not liquidated until 1950.

Kennedy was commuting between San Francisco and Juneau in the early 1920s, but returned to San Francisco for good after the plant closed. His brother, T. F. Kennedy, was president of the First National Bank in Treadwell [?]. His sister Veronica was married to Robert A. Kinzie, general superintendent of the Treadwell, Alaska Mexican Gold Mining Co., Alaska United Gold Mining Company, and the Alaska Juneau Gold Mining Company from 1905-1914. The Library’s Collections of the Kinzie Papers and Photographs contain references to Speel River (MS 21 and PCA 13).

The following history appears in Timber Management Plan, Tongass National Forest, Alaska Region, 1958-1967 by John A. Sandor and John E. Weisgerber, Foresters, Division of Timber Management, Juneau, Alaska, [1967?], pp.7-8.

“In March of 1920 the Alaska Pulp and Paper Company applied for the purchase of 100 million feet of timber from the Port Snettisham and Glass Peninsula areas for the manufacture of pulp at Speel River, Alaska (S-SALES, Tongass, Alaska Pulp and Paper Company, June 1, 1920). The Forest Service subsequently advertised a sale of this amount calling for bids at not less than $1.00 per MBF for Sitka spruce, western red cedar and Alaska cedar and 50 cents per MBF for western hemlock and other species. The applicant (and sole bidder) bid the advertised rate and the timber sale contract was approved December 8, 1920.

“The Alaska Pulp and Paper Company built a small mill on the Speel River, near Juneau, and shipped 100 tons of pulp to Seattle in April of 1921 via the steamer, City of Seattle, at a rate of $5.00 per ton of ‘wet’ pulp. Shortly thereafter, company officials announced closure of the mill claiming that the low price of pulp $35.00 a ton, coupled with freight charges that totaled $12.40 on every dry ton landed at Seattle made it impossible to operate at a profit.

“Records indicate the plant finally closed on November 15, 1923. The agreement with the Alaska Pulp and Paper Company was formally cancelled August 22, 1925. During the Company’s period of operation an estimated 300 tons of pulp were produced from logs purchased principally from independent operators. Actually only 69,890 board feet of spruce sawtimber was cut by the pulp company under their sale contract—this in early 1921.

“The failure of this operation was apparently due to pulp market competition and lack of finances to construct a plant of greater size or one that could produce paper or dry pulp. Shipping baled wet pulp with from 55 to 60 percent water content in the quantities produced simply didn’t pay.”