Even the original Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

Hemp fiber was used for sails and ropes for sea-going vessels during the 17th and 18th Centuries. Up until the early 20th Century, removing hemp fiber by hand was too tedious and slow for hemp to compete with other industries propelled by the burgeoning machine age.

But as WWI broke out, a German immigrant in California, George Schlichten, invented and successfully tested the first hemp decorticator, which could mechanically strip hemp of its fiber rapidly and efficiently.