An Editorial... \(/ritten bv the Life Daeds of a

Reprinted lrom The Log of Long-Bell, March; 1944

Most of the western United States was young ...andboisterous... wild and woolly ; and free and easy "live and let live" *'as the creed of the still living but beginning to fadefrontiers...when B. H. Smith signed on for a lifetime of conscientious living and uprighteous en deavors withLong-Bell ...January l,1894.

In 1898 he went to Thomasville, Indian Territory, as gene manager of the King-Ryder Lumber Company, operator of planing mill supplied by ten small'sawmills scattered th the mountains and along the Kansai City Southerh, in sas. The o;ieration in 1900 was moved to Bonami,.I-a., Mr. Smith also went, as general manager, remaining l907,,when he went to Longville, I.a., as general mahager-: built the Longville Lumber Company plant. When his temporarily failed, he relinquished the management therEl J. W. Martin, had a leave of absence, and then, 12 years left the active production of lumber in the Midwest and for a home on the Pacific Coast, at Sacramento, in the rOIoJ of sales. representative for the Company for that region."..''i{

Smith

V, B. Rell was president of the Company and R. A. Long, who died as chairman of the board in 1934 after half a century with the Company that bore his name, was secretary and general manager.

W. L. Mace was manager <if the plant at Van Buren, Ark., and John Fontaine was in charge of the Texarkana office.

There rvas life and bustle, freedom unlimited, in an expanding era soon to become an era of invention . the automobile the gramophone . . . electric street cars and incandescent lights , the telephono . and a 60-mile train known as "The Flier" on nearly every railroad . predecessors of the mechanical and-scientific marvels of today.

It was a virile and courageous America that B. H. Smith was to help build into the giant of the nations, when he joined Long-Bell, as assistant manager of the Pacific Coast Lumber and Supply Company, a wholesale and retail yard at Twentieth and Troost, in'Kansas City.

Years of movement followed. In 1895 he succeeded Mr. Fontaine as manager of the Sabine Valley Lumber Company, and wholesale and retail buyer of yellow pine, at Texarkana.

A Grand Old l\{an, B. H. Smith is still in the harness,'help': ing to move the lumber where it is needed'most by the he loves, the country whose zest for the sheer joy of livir through good times or bad, he will never be willing to relinf quish to the drabness and dullness and moral decay of the reg+; imented life.

His was the fun of the fight . . . the striving . . . and the; gaining nor losing heart wheg trifling ground was lost ,i'; the spirit that all men, deep in their hearts, admire and to have, rather than a spirit of acceptance of an ordered a monotonous existence,wherein all decisions are those of " ,. :-,i body else." ir,

Well, Old Feller, maybe the first fifty years are the . but here's to your next half never lose your punch.

Commissioned Second iieutencnt rj

Raymond J. Van lde, formerly with Hobbs Wall Lumbei:;: ,ii Co' and later with W. B. Jones Lumber.Co., I-os Angelesr.; was commissioned a Second Lieutenant. at the Victorville; Air Field, Victorville, Calif., on April 8. EIe is a bcimbardi6r:i

With E" K. lltlood tumber Co.

Enoch Holmberg, well known lumber salesman, who, for many years.with Coos Bay Lumber Co., San Francisco, now associated with E. K. Wood Lumber Co., Oakland.