The I-ong-Bell Lumber Company to Celebrate 50th Anniversary

Back of every great industry there is history and busin-ess romance, incidents that are as interedting as a novelif you are fortunate enough to get all of those unpublished facts. America has seen many such romances-poor men who became millionaires over night, millionaires-who lost their fortunes as quickly as they had made them and then through sheer persistence, coupled with a certain amount of-ggod judgpnent and good luck, recouped their fortunes.

Behind the Long-Bell Lumber Company, which next month celebrates its Fiftieth birthday and'which has become the.largest concern of its kind in the world operating under a single name, is a story of small'b.eginnings,-gradual and persistent growth, constant expansion into a worldwlde enterprlse.

Robert Alexander Long, chairman of the board of directors of the Long-Bell Lumber Company. was born December t7, 1p_5p, on a farm near Shelbyviile, Kentucky. In J-anuary, 1873,he came to Kansas City and 6ought a bltcher shop 9n Broadway, near the Coates House. T-he following year-he -moved to Columbus, Kansas, and engaged in the hay business. _This venture did not turn out-as- expected, and it was while closing out the lumber used in tlie construction of hay sheds that Columbus citizens prevailed upon him to go into the lumber business there. It was on $nril 30, 1875, that he formed the partnership, R. A. Long & Company, associating with himself Mr. Robert Whiti and Mr. Victor B. Bell.

_;^T!t. firm of R. A. Long & Company prospered and in 1884 was incorporafed un-der the nam-e 6t t6e Lone-Bell Lumber Company with a capital stock of $300,000.

i T-"dqy the Long-Bell Lumber Company, which had its beginning in a smill retail yard at Coiumbus, Kansas, has thirteen lumber manufacturing plants located in Louisiana, Texas, M.ississippi, -Arkansas,- ealifornia and Washington. It maintains over a hundred and twenty retail vards loJated principally in- the Southwest, a sash and dooi factory and two sash and door warehouses. The company creosotes its.treated products at Fhreveport and DeRid^der, La. Long- Bell was the first lumber manufacturer to trade-mark arid nationally advertise lumber products, and Long-Bell prod- ucts are sold the world ovei. The company 6as risin to eminence as the largest manufacturer of Soirthern yellow Pine lumber.

Then operations were extended to the Pacific Northwest. Iy !92o.the_company bought a large body of Douglas Fir timber in Washington. dmillsite i'as seiected at t"he confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers, and the officers -of t-he company began to make plans for the erection of lumber manufacturing plants which would become the larg- est in the world.

W. B. GRISWOLD DIES

_-ry. B. Griswold, founder of the Griswold Lumber Co., died in Oakland, March 7. Deceased was a native of Missouri and was born November 9, 1834. He crossed the plains in1852 and had been a resident of Chico for 30 years prior to going to Oakland.

A. L. HAWKINS MAKES CHANGE

Avon I'.. Hawkins, for the past three years in the auditing and credit departments of the Woodhead Lumber Com-pany, Los Angeles, is now connected with the Sun Lumber Company, Beverly Hills.