[2] David Tower, the senior partner of the firm, first entered the business of engineering paper mills as an apprentice millwright in 1845 at the age of 13, and eventually moved his own practice to Holyoke in 1867.

[4] Receiving a steady stream of work, David gradually brought on other draftsmen and was joined in 1871 by his younger brother Ashley B.

[13] The brothers would also play a significant role in establishing the economic success of the Kimberly-Clark company, designing one of its earliest groundwood pulp plants in Kimberly, Wisconsin in 1888.

With this new plant the company had the resources and geographic scale of the American Midwest, while operating the first such mill west of Pennsylvania to adopt the improved process which derived almost pure cellulose from wood pulp.

[16] In time his abilities exceeded his older brother's in certain regards; of the two, he was the only one known to hold patents- by 1885, he had invented an improved wood pulp grinder which would be used in their clients' mills domestically and abroad.

Designed and built in 1887 on the banks of the Tietê River, at the time of its construction it was regarded as a folly by locals, who mocked Melchert & Cia, its wealthy Brazilian backers, for "[the] insane idea of manufacturing paper in that country".

[4] They were described by several accounts as having been known internationally, with projects engineered by them in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, and Central American nations as well.

[20] Their architectural styles varied on the practicality of the project in question, and Second Empire and Italianate motifs can be found in their more ornate work.

As if in jest, referencing their family name, the brothers were known for prominently featuring literal towers in their work, often decorative in nature, with faux battlements.

This, combined with demand for larger-scaled operations and ready access to raw material led Tower & Wallace to relocate to New York City, where the firm would remain for the next several years.

[18] It was reported by the end of the brothers' partnership that all of their architectural and mechanical designs, some 8,000 drawings were stored in a series of safes in the third floor of the Flatiron block for the purpose of preserving the designs for their clients in case of an emergency,[9] the fate of these plans remains unknown, however following Ashley Tower's death in 1901, the assets of the former Tower firm in New York were purchased by their former draftsman George F. Hardy, who maintained his own engineering business in that city thereafter.

Rechristened as George F. Hardy & Son, he would continue to build upon the legacy of his former employers, designing dozens of paper mills internationally for several more decades.

His work was wide-ranging, from the design of stationary buildings such as business blocks and residences, to the engineering of mechanical equipment such as dams and waterwheels.

On July 2, 1859, Tower married Margaret Young, of Glasgow, Scotland; the couple bore one son, Walter Lamont, who was born in Dalton on December 26, 1868.

[6] In retirement he continued to do some work with the assistance of his son, including a dam to the local Egypt Reservoir in Dalton,[39] which was part of a broader overhaul for the Crane company and the town alike, engineering a reservoir water system that would allow the town to make use of the pumps of the Weston mills for additional pressure in the event of a fire.

In order to keep their firm competitive and abreast of the latest developments in industrial architecture, Ashley Tower travelled twice to Europe to study foreign construction methods of paper mills.

[43] In this same time he also designed the grounds of the city's Calvary Cemetery,[44] and served as a consulting engineer of the American Sulphite Company.

Reflecting the changes of the times, the firm began focusing on steel office building work in addition to the core clientele of paper mills.

When the American Writing Paper Company trust went into business in 1899, Ashley Tower was among those hired to appraise its assets, having been involved in the design of many of them himself.

[48] Ashley also was an active freemason, being a member of not only the blue lodge but also a Knights Templar, and 32nd degree mason of the Scottish Rite.

[49] By the end of his life he had received critical acclaim in his field and was previously described by John A. Kimberly of Kimberly-Clark fame as "the prince of paper mill architects".