West was called "The Paper Bag King" because he was one of the first men in the country to manufacture paper bags at a time when most bags were made from cotton. In 1869, he and the few other bag manufacturers in the country joined with Francis Wolle, inventor of the first paper bag machine, to form the Union Paper Bag Machine Company. Its only purpose was to "buy and fight patents." This early trust was highly successful, as each member had access to all of the earliest paper bag patents and agreed not to compete with each other.