It sits across the river from the site of the defunct Blue Heron Paper Company in Oregon City.

[1] It employed up to 1,600 people at the peak of its operations, and historians credit the mill with fueling regional publishing and supplying paper for publications across the U.S.[2] The ownership of the West Linn mill changed several times; it was owned by Crown Zellerbach until late 1985, James River until 1990,[3][4] and Simpson until 1996, when its closure idled nearly 400 employees.

[1] After two decades, the West Linn Paper Company announced it was shutting down in October 2017 due to an unexpected shortage of pulp supply.

[2][7] The mill reopened in November 2019 as Willamette Falls Paper Company with 97 of its previous employees,[8][9] after a "multimillion dollar bet" from investor Ken Peterson's Columbia Ventures, who intends to demonstrate the viability of making paper using wheat farmers' waste straw instead of wood pulp.

[11] A federal lawsuit was filed in October 2024 against the company that a layoff with a 3-day notice violated the WARN Act.