R. A. Long, Veteran Lumberman, Passes On

R. A. Lon6

Robert Alexander Long, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Long-Bell Lumber Company and one of the nationls leading lumbermen, died at Menorah hospital, Kansas City, M-o., early Thursday evening, March 15, 1934, followirrg an operation for an intestinal adhesion. He was 83 years of age. Mr. I-ong appeared in good health until Tuesday morning, March 13, when he became seriously ill and was taken to the hospital to undergo an operation. The day before he was at his desk as usual, attending to the affairs of the company.

Mr. Long was born on a farm near Shelbyville, Kentucky, December 17, 1850. He was a son of Samuel M. and Margaret K. (White) Long, the latter being a cousin of United States Senator Joseph S. C. Blackburn, and of Luke Pryor Blackburn who became governor of Kentucky. He attended the district school and then had a few months in a boys school at Shelbyville. On January 22, 1873, when he was 22 vears old, he left home for Kansas City carrying with hirn $700 in savings which he had made gathering hickory nuts and walnuts, stripping bluegrass, and clerking one winter in a country store. While in Kansas City he made his home with an uncle.

His first venture was operating a butcher shop in Kansas City. A year later,'1874, accompanied by his cousin, Robert White, and Victor Bell, son of the president of the bank where his uncle was cashier. he started for Columbus, Kansas, io invest his savings in wild grass hay which should have been valuable that year as the grasshoppers had eaten the field crops. They cut and placed in stacks some 30O tons of hay. They shipped in a few carloads of lumber to build a shed to press this hay under during the winter. The hay was cut too late, turned brown, and was sold at a loss, while lumber that was used to build the shed sold for more than the hay. Mr. Long had.been the active manager of the hay ventute, and when he was leaving Columbus several of the citizens who had bought the lumber from the shed asked him to come back and start a lumber yard.

Mr. Long returned to Kansas City, borrowed $8,000, and on April 30, 1875, opened a retail lumber yard at Columbus, Kansas, R. A. Long & Co. Mr. Long was the manager. His two partners, neither of them 2O years old, were inactive. The first year the firm made $800 and the second year $2,000.

Mr. Long married Ella M. Wilson, December 16, 1875. She was the daughter of George and Eliza Jane Wilson, of Chester County, Pa. At an early age, she came to Kansas with her widowed mother, four brothers and three sisters, and settled near Columbus. Mrs. Long died November 22, l92f,, at the residence in Kansas City, at the age of 74 years.

The firm of R. A. I-ong & Co. prospered and in 1884, Mr. Long and his younger partners, Robert White and Victor Bell, incorporated under the name of the Long-Bell

Lumber Company with a capital stock of $3@,000, of which half was paid up. Southern Kansas, Indian Territory and Northern Texas were then entering upon a period of development; railroads were being built, and the company extended its operations by establishing yards in other towns. In 1889, the company bought a small portable sawmill in the South and began to manufacture and wholesale lumber in a small way. In 1891, the offices of the company ryere moved to Kansas City. The R. A. Long Building at Tenth and Grand Streets, the first steel skeleton office building of consequence at Kansas City, was constructed between the years 1905 and lX)7. During the following years additional retail yards were added, new mills were acquired in the South, and the Long-Bell Lumber Company rose to eminence as the largest manufacturer of Southern Yellow Pine lumber.

Because the forest lands of the South were beginning to be depleted and in order to perpetuate the company, operations were extended to the Pacific Northwest. In l9N, the .company bought a large body of Douglas Fir timber located principally in Cowlitz and Lewis counties in the state of Washington. A millsite was selected at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia rivers, upon which site have been erected large lumber manufacturing plants. Perhaps the most outstanding event, at least the most spectacular and enormous, in the career of Mr. Long has been the building of the new city of Longview, Washington. Here a modern'city has been built from the ground up according to a preconceived and well defined plan of city building. The young city celebrated its first birthday with a four-day pageant of progress during the summer of 1924, At that time it had a population of more than 5,000, with 281 business enterprises, a 6-story modern hotel, churches, factories and many fine homes. Mr. Long presented the city with a high school building and 35-acre q!te, costing in excess of $650,000, making the total of his personal gifts to Longview of nearly two million dollars.

Longview is located on tide water on the Columbia River and is a port of call for ocean going vessels. The city is served by three transcontinental railway systems, being on the main line of the Northern Pacific, Great Northern and Union Pacific Railways between Portland and Seattle, and is also served by the Pacific and Columbia River highways. The second highest bridge over navigable waters in the nation, across the Columbia River between Longview, Washington and Rainier, Oregon, was open for traffic on March 29, 1930.

Mr. Long was one of the organizers of the Missouri Association of lumber dealers, of which he later was a director. He also served at one time as president of the Southern Pine Association, president of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, and was associated with numerous other organizations of lumbermen. On behalf of the lumbermen he responded to the address of wel€ome extended to them by President Francis of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, and was among those who addressed the first Conservation C-o^n^gress called by President Roosevelt at Washin'gton in 1908.

At an early age Mr. Long became identified with the Christian Chur,ch, his Kansas City membership being with the Independence Boulevard Christian Church, one of the largest congregations of that denomination in the country. He has been president of the American Christian Missionary Society, the Brotherhood of Disciples of Christ, the Christian Board of Publications, and a trustee of the Bible College of Missouri. The National City Christian Church in Washington, D. C., dedicated in 193O, was headed by Mr. Long. He had been actively engaged in the "Men and Millions" movement and was a large contributor to it. He also devoted much of his time and wealth to personal, charitable and philanthropic work, and donated the major portion of money to build the Christian Hospital of Kansas City.

Mr. Long's benefactions were many, among the principal ones being: Longview Public Library and Robert A. Long High School with 35-acre campus, gifts to the city of Longview, Wash.; Independence Christian Church, Kansas City, large contributor; National City Christian Church, Washington, D. C., large contributor; Christian Board of Publications, St. Louis, gift; "Men and Millions" movement, contributor; Margaret K. Long school, Tokio, founder; Lake Sacajawea development (park beautification), Longview, Wash.; Christian Church hospital, Kansas City, ,contributor; Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, ,contributor; Longview Community church, Longview, Wash.; contributor to fund, also gave organ; Longview Memorial hospital, contributor.

Mr. Long was a very public spirited man and interested