Firestone Cotton Mills of Canada began operations in 1936 in a building purchased from the Oxford Knitting Mills in Woodstock, Ontario. The building was known as Plant Number 1, located at the corner of Oxford and Ingersoll Streets. Plant #1 manufactured cotton for tire cord cotton reinforced tires. The cotton was used until the 1940’s when rayon was introduced. Today tires are reinforced using a mixture of nylon and polyester. During the Second World War, many of the positions at Firestone were held by women. Firestone was also the first job for many immigrants arriving to Canada during the 1950’s….

In the early 1900s, the McCormick family had controlling interest of the (Chicago) Tribune Company which produced newspapers. In 1910, Robert McCormick started working in the family’s business and the following year was elected president of the Tribune Company. The Tribune’s main competition was a newspaper out of Hearst which was able to obtain newsprint at lower cost. McCormick developed a plan to build his own newsprint mill in order to have better control over the price of his most important raw material. In winter of 1911, he chose a location in Thorold, Ontario which was at the time a…