FLASHBack 67 Years Ago This Month
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marked a revelation for lumber dealers, as the une 195 issue of The California Lumber Merchant featured numerous reports chronicling the sudden emergence of a vast new “do-it-yourself” market. U.S. Plywood Corp., for one, was stunned with the results of a survey of users of its own products. According to advertising director R.S. Lowell, “We made the startling discovery that 42% of the interviewed users of hardwood paneling had installed the materials themselves!” ames Corbet, longtime sales manager for Western Pine Supply, was leaving the wholesale business to open up his own “home craftsman store” in Larkspur, Ca., catering to the “homeowner, do-it-yourself man, and hobbyist. His ,500-sq. ft. store would stock plain and decorative plywoods, power tools, lumber for shelving, cabinet work, moulding, fencing, paint, BBQ equipment, hardware, housewares and garden supplies. His wife, Beth, would help run the housewares department. They’d keep the store open six full days a week, plus Sunday mornings.
THE JUNE 1954 issue spotlighted White Brothers, which to this day mills hardwood millwork in Oakland, Ca., at age 149.
In other news of 67 years ago: • The Masonite Corp. of Ukiah, Ca., became the largest tree-farm owner in the Redwood Region after having 6 ,27 acres of local forestlands certified by the California Redwood Association. • Building material suppliers along the West Coast were excited to hear California Governor Goodwin night announce that the state would spend 1 billion over the next six years building schools at a rate of 100 new classrooms every week until 1960. He also expected to spend 150 million in 195 on highway construction. The Gypsum Association launched a special merchandising program designed to help LBM dealers “get the biggest possible share” of the $7-billion-ayear “Add-a-Room” market. Supplementing the merchandising of individual gypsum manufacturers, the association began distributing a series of Add-a-Room mailing pieces to more than 23,000 dealers. • The Association of American Railroads reported that the amount of forest products purchased by the nation’s Class I railroads in 1953 totaled 176 million, with crossties accounting for the biggest share. More than 96 million was spent on treated and untreated ties, representing about 55% of the railroads’ total expenditures on wood products. They also paid 25. million for switch and bridge ties and timber, 3 million for rough and finished lumber, and 11.2 million for other forest products.
BLUE DIAMOND CORP.—no relation to the almond growers—operated a gypsum mine in Blue Diamond, Nv., to supply its adjacent wallboard factory. In time, the mine was sold to James Hardie, which sold the plant to BPB in 2002.
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The Merchant Magazine n
June 2021
• Pickering Lumber Corp., Standard, Ca., sold to the State of California a 2,115-acre tract in Tuolumne County, on which stands one of the most beautiful groves of Sequoia Gigantea trees in existence. The $2.8 million purchase was made possible by a $1 million donation by ohn D. Rockefeller. Days earlier, Pickering traded its Sugar Pine Memorial Grove in Tuolumne County to the federal government for the cutting rights to a nearby tract.
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