Lumber P ersonalities A. B. Hammond

Lumbermen everywhere will be interested in this brief sketch of the career of accomplishment of th:s internationally known lumberman, Andrew B. Han.rmond, of San Francisco, head of the great Hammond Lumber Company, with its Redwood mills having a capacity of 600,000 feet per day, its great Douglas fir manufacturing plants in Oregon, its vast timberlands in California and Oregon with their railway systems and logging equipment, its huge wholesale yard at Terminal Island, Calif., its distributing and millwork plants in Los Angeles and numerous retail lumber yards throughout California.

Mr. Hammond was born in St. Leonards, N. B., Canada, on July 22, 1848, the son of Andrew B. and Glorianna Harding (Coombes) Hammond. He came west to Missoula, in Western Montana, in 1867 at the age of 19. Here he organized the Missoula Mercantile Company, the First National Bank and the Blackfoot Mill Company, and rvas active for many years in the up-building and expansion of these important enterprises.

As a further outlet for his activities he built the Bitter Root Valley and Philipburg Railroads.

In 1895 he rvent to Oregon, where he became the associate of Collis P. Huntington, the Mark Hopkins Estate and John Claflin of Nerv York, in the construction, orvnership and management of the Astoria and Columbia Railroad, which connected Astoria rvith Portland, and in the acquisiti,on and reconstruction of the railroad from Yaquina Bay through Corvallis and Albany to Mill City, Ore., where one of the fir mills of the Hammond Lumber Company is located.

These gentlemen also became identified u'ith the Hammond Lumber Company, which acquired timberlands in Oregon, began the manufacture of luml>er in that State and also entered the Redwood lumber buslness in California. This step was brought about by the formation of the Vance Lumber Company, which took over the manufacturing plant at Samoa, Humboldt Bay, and timberlands of Edgar H. Vance and his brother, .whose father, John Vance, hacl carried on there one of the earliest Redwood operations in Calif ornia. This company was later succeeded by the Hammond Lumber Cornpany.

Credit for the modernization of the Redwood industry is by common consent given to Mr. Hammond, and he is regarded as the dean of the industry. His development of the practice of re-manufacturing at the mill of finished products such as sash, doors, etc., has been a big factor in the growth of the industry. He is also credited with the introduction of large steel steamers to replace the small wooden lumber carriers.

Mr. Hammond married Miss Florence Abbott of Mis_ soula, Mont., February 22, 1879, whom he survives. His children are Edwina Clare (Mrs. Frank B. King), Florence (Mrs. Norman Whiteside), Leonard C., Grace (Mrs. W. S. Burnett), and Daisy Estelle.

He has lived in San Franc:sco since 19@. He is a Mason (K. T. Shriner), is a member of the Bohemian, Pacific IJnion, Commercial and S. F. Golf clubs. San Francisco: Arlington Club, Portland; Bolsa Chica Gun Club, Los Angeles, and Rocky Mountain Club, New York.

Mr. Hammond is still very active in the management of the Hammond Lumber Company, irr which he is assisted by his son, Mr. Leonard C. Hammond. The years rest lightly on this man, now in his 84th year, whom strangers often guess to be not more than 60, and whose erect and slender figure might be envied by many men not half his age; who has had such a long and colorful career, and who is still intensely interested in the business to which he has devoted a great part of his life.