E. K, Wood's New Wholesale Dock and Yard at l-rong Beach

The E. K. Wood Lumber Company opened its nerv wholesale Dock at Berth 28, Outer Harbor, Long Beach, Calif., on December 19, 1939, and it is now in full operation. Seven cargoes of lumber were unloaded last week. Before moving to the new location, they operated a wholesale dock at San Pedro where they had been for the past forty years.

The new plant occupies ten acres of ground, and has an all-paved floor. It is strictly a wholesale operation for receiving, sorting, distributing and storing lumber for the wholesale trade and their own retail yards. 20,000,000 feet of lumber a month can be easily handled over the dock.

There are only four buildings in the yard, the office, small sawmill, shed for dry lumber, and a garage-machine shop. The office is streamlined, insulated and modern in every detail. Equipment in the sawmill includes resawing, ripping and cut-off saws used in making up orders for the wholesale trade. The lumber shed has a capacity of a quarter-million feet of kiln dry stock, and the garagemachine shop is used for the upkeep and maintenance of the equipment.

The gantry crane which is used is unusual and out-ofthe ordinary. It is the fastest crane in operation in Southern California, will travel 25O f.eet per minute, and is capable of loading a million feet of lumber in eight hours. It has an automatic winding cable which is synchronized with the speed of the crane. This crane was designed by W.

J. A. (Al) Privett, manager of E. K. Wood Lumber Cornpany at Los Angeles, supervised the building of the new plant, and Mr. Starkey was in charge of construction, laying of tracks, installing the crane and all details.

The lumber operations are easy to handle and economical. The lumber is unloaded from the boats in units, which are picked up by Ross carriers and assembled, loaded onto trucks by the crane, and the shipments are then ready to move out of the yard. Four streets run into the yard from the main boulevard.

E. K. Wood Lumber Co. operates three vessels in the coastwise lumber trade, "Olympic," "Cascade," and "El Capitan." Their mill operations are at Anacortes, Wash.

Warren B. Wood of Los Angeles, president of the company, Mr. Privett and Mr. Starkey formulated the plans for the new dock and worked on the idea for about three years before starting construction.

Speaking of the new Long Beach plant, Manager Privett, who refers to it as his "pet" says, "The officials of the company are pleased with their new set-up at the Harbor. It is easy to operate, and since it has been in operation has proven economical, even exceeding their expectations."

John J. Waldron, who was formerly connected with the retail sales department in their Los Angeles office, is manager at the new dock.