PLANTING OUR ROOTS: 1899-1969
Every Sonoco employee leaves their mark, even if it’s just the positive energy they bring to the plant floor.
Sometimes that mark feels larger than life: about as big as a football field, in one person’s case. That person was the highly respected Peter Leroy (P.L.) McCall.
When Peter started at Sonoco, he probably didn’t know that he would go on to become one of our directors. And he definitely didn’t know that, well into his tenure with the company, Sonoco would name a 175-ton paper machine after him.
On June 20, 1958, Sonoco did just that. Hundreds of people gathered to kick off our four-phase, $10 million expansion in Hartsville, South Carolina.
Phase one was a paper machine that stretched almost the length of a regulation football field—about one-sixth of the total yards that University of South Carolina running back Johnny Saunders gained that same year.
During his decades-long tenure, Peter proved himself to be quite the team player. At the request of his colleagues from the Corrugated Division, then-Vice President Charles W. Coker dedicated the new machine to him.
“Mr. Mac,” as this machine was lovingly called, was designed to make a sheet of paper 175 inches wide. It joined a series of Sonoco-owned paper machines over the years—including our very first, acquired in 1893.
That machine cost $19,050—more than $600,000 in 2023 dollars. The financial investment must have felt significant in 1893. And it had a critical impact on the more than 130 years that followed.
Now imagine what the $10 million investment required to build Mr. Mac felt like in 1958—and everything that became possible as a result.
Each and every machine we’ve built and plan to build—named for a veteran employee or not—bears the mark of the people who use them. They’ve all blazed the pathway necessary to reach our commitment to better—Better Packaging. Better Life.
Sealed to the larger-than-life machine in 1958 was a plaque that read, “Mr. Mac—long may you serve those whose faith has made you possible.”
A giant machine to match giant employee contributions that have built and continue to build Sonoco.