FLASHBACK

FLASHBACK: 1957 HOLIDAY GIFT

SIXTY-FIVE YEARS ago this month, BPD sister publication The Merchant Magazine reported an amazing Christmas gift—a lumber company donated an entire town to military veterans.

International Paper Co.’s LongBell Division presented to the Veterans of Foreign Wars the then-35year-old Northern California logging town of Tennant. The completely-equipped, 100-acre site once had a population of 800, but cleared out once the local woods were exhausted of timber and the railroad pulled up stakes.

Tennant was founded in 1922 as logging headquarters to serve the sawmill in Weed, Ca., located about 40 miles to the southwest. At least 3.5 billion bd. ft. of logs moved through the town in its lifetime to the Weed sawmill. The town at one time had its own railroad running about 70 miles east into Modoc County. At the height of operations, 12 locomotives and 300 cars were needed to keep the Weed mill in logs. The logging camp was named for the late J.D. Tennant, vice-president and general manager of western operations for Long-Bell.

Tennant was never a rough town, like other logging camps. It was a planned community where loggers lived with their families. Its homes had lawns and fenced yards in a pine tree setting with a breath-taking view of snow-covered, 14-161-ft. Mount Shasta.

VFW officials intended to use the site “as a home for pensioned veterans” and possibly a boys’ summer camp.

In other news of 65 years ago: • Two of San Diego’s strongest LBM dealers—Dixie Lumber & Supply and Arline Lumber Co.—joined forces, to be known effective Jan. 1, 1958, as DixieLine Lumber Co.

Dixie closed up its 44-yearold yard in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, two of its co-owners retired, and the third (Bill Cowling Sr.) partnered with Arline owner Robert Sutton to form the new business at Arline’s more modern facility. Cowling, who had been secretary and general manager of Dixie since 1926, became president, Sutton VP, and Bill Cowing Jr., secretary-treasurer and assistant manager of the retail yard.

DixieLine would grow to 12 locations by 2003 when Cowling Jr. sold it to Lanoga (later part of ProBuild, now Builders FirstSource). • Wood preserving was on the rise—but little of it for lumber. An AWPA report noted that in 1956, 325 plants treated 257.9 million cubic ft. of wood, including piles (21%), poles (l5%), switch ties (11%), crossarms (8%), and lumber and timbers (4%). • Weyerhaeuser unveiled its mega-lift... the largest lift truck on the West Coast, capable of hoisting as high as a two-story house all the lumber an average U.S. citizen would use in eight years.

The Merchant likened the behemoth to a gigantic hermit crab with

In December of 1957, West Coast sister wholesalers Gordon MacBeath Hardwood and L.J. Carr & Co. sent out their Christmas greetings on the front cover of The California Lumber Merchant.

outstretched pincers, overhead antennae, and carrying its own house on its back. In use at Weyerhaeuser Timber Co.’s sawmill in Raymond, Wa., the lift’s 8-ft. “pincers” slid under 2O-ton stacks of lumber as it unloaded a rail car in four trips in less than 15 minutes. The 26-ton truck with 128-hp engine could move forward or backward with equal ease, and travel up to 16 mph. • National Building Material Distributors Association held its 6th annual meeting, attracting 538 attendees from 42 states to Chicago.

The highlight: a luncheon roundtable on “New Products I Have Found Profitable,” in which wholesale distributors shared how they were diversifying their lines into “specialty products” that carried higher-than-average markups. • Los Angeles’ Martin Plywood Co., having just celebrated its 10th anniversary and in need of twice as much room as it currently held, moved into a new 32,000-sq. ft. warehouse in the City of Commerce. Today, the facility is operated by US Polymers to manufacture DuraMax vinyl building products.

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