Harding-Jones Paper Company District

Along South Main Street in Excello, Ohio, a paper mill, two houses, a carriage house and a canal lock make up a small industrial district. A. E. Harding, an English-born papermaker, founded the mill in 1865 near the first lock completed on the Miami-Erie Canal. The original wood building was replaced by a three-story brick mill in 1871, which still forms the center of the complex alongside later additions. The mill was the first west of the Allegheny Mountains to make fine writing paper, and it was later reorganized as the Harding-Jones Paper Company. Harding's second house, built in 1875, has a hip roof, bracketed cornice and elliptical fanlight, while a frame carriage house with a three-story tower stands to its north. The limestone lock, now a public park, reflects the role of the canals in Ohio commerce. The mill remains in production today, with rollers installed in 1897 still in use.