CENTENNIAL Flashback
The 1920s • Pacific Lumber Co., forerunner of Humboldt Sawmill, started in 1908 and quickly became one of the largest producers in California’s Redwood Region. First advertising in January 1923, PALCO became a division of Maxxam Inc. in 1986, before being rescued from bankruptcy by Mendocino Redwood in 2008.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of The Merchant
Magazine, which was launched in the summer of 1922 as The California Lumber Merchant. Like the lumber industry itself, which we strive every day to inform and serve, our own business is wholly built on relationships. For us, those are relationships with our valued readers as well as with our invaluable advertisers, who have helped to make this journey possible. So as a prelude to a massive Centennial Special Issue in August, every month beforehand we will celebrate a different era of advertisers—showcasing the history of those companies that are still going strong all these years later and looking back at their very first advertisement in our publications. • Bruce has been manufacturing hardwood flooring since 1884 and has been promoting them in our pages since our very first issue—in July of 1922. Bruce later became a brand of Armstrong, was purchased by AIP in 2018, and last summer was acquired by AHF Products.
• White Brothers’ milling operation in Oakland, Ca., has always been a kindred spirit of The Merchant, with its founding coming exactly 50 years before our own. Consequently, ever since first advertising in January 1923, the company regularly ran milestone anniversary ads on our own anniversary—only 50 years apart.
• Weyerhaeuser Co. began in Tacoma, Wa., in 1900 as a timberland owner, quickly growing into one of the world’s largest lumber manufacturers and distributors, and—since October 1922—our longest consistently-running advertiser.
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• Moore Dry Kiln Co.was founded in 1879 and became p a r t o f U S N R ’s Dry Kiln Division in 1969. It first promoted its dry kilns in our pages in April 1923. • California Panel & Veneer Co., Cerritos, Ca., has been serving the woodworking industry since 1917, growing into the foremost distributor of wood panels and Formica brand laminates in Southern California. The company first joined forces with The Merchant in July 1923.
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