History of The Hardwood Industr) on The Qacifrc Coasr

Bv c. H. \fiHrIE Vice President and

\X/hite Brothers,

Read by Mr. White to the convention of the pacific Coast Hardwood Dealers' Association, at Victo,ria, B. C., August 21, l93I

In Colonial days dense forests extended from the Atlantic Oce-an to beyond the Mississippi. The felling and ship- ping of logs to England and the continent was one of t6e principal industries of the English settlements, which lined the Atlantic Coast from Maini to the- Carolinas. The first saw mill record6d was built at-scituate, in Plymouth Colony, half way between Plymouth and Boston,- in 164O. It was run by water power and was a great improvement over the previous methods o_f splitting out boards or sarving them out, in a pit by hand. All the colonies were engage<l more or less in lumbering. New Jersey produced wondlrful Oak and other hardwoods. North Carolina was hardly surpassed by "ly colony in its forests, but a great many of the trees were coniferous.

The lumber industry swept westward with the opening up of the country mainly along the Northern tier of States-. Ohio and Indiana were almost entirelv covered with hardwood trees-there being almost a complet. absence of conifers. In 1830 the first saw mill appeared in Chicago. There is a record of lumber prices in that city in 1848; all varieties of wood were bunched together and there were only two grades,_Clear and Common, the latter including everything below Clear. The price of Clears, all varieties-, was $12.0C to $16.00 per thousand feet, and Common was $8.0O to $9.00 per thousand feet.

_ Th. opening up and clearing of the Nlichigan forest soolr followed and the industry swept South on both sides of the Mississippi through lower Iliinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

The beginning of the hardwood industry of the Pacific Coast was not so very much later than that of Chicago. In 1849 and 185O the general merchandise stores in San Francisco, such as, Howard and Me4is, and Leidsdorfi, brought around the Horn in clipper ships along with boots, shoies, clothing,. and food stuffs, some hardwoods. This was for the blacksmith and wagon makers to use in building the thorough brace coaches and wagons which hauled the goods and passengers to the gold mines in the foothills of the Sierras. Studebaker was building wheelbarrows and wagons at Hangtown, accumulating the modest capital which started Studebaker Brothers at South Bend, Indiana. Stockton was a center of trade for the mines in Amador and Tuolumne Counties and there in the early fifties J. T. and Edwin Hickinbotham established a shop for building wagons and stage coaches, and imported their own hardwoods in clipper ships from Springfield and Lambertville, New Jersey. The 6rm of Hickinbotham Brothers is still doing business in Stockton selling wagon material and hardwood lumber. There is apparently no qrrestion that they are the oldest existent hardwood house on the Pacific Coast, at least insofar as their special line is concerned.

In the 6Os, 7(fs, and 8O's a number of firms entered the hardwood business in San Francisco, first as an adjunct to

Generol Manoger San Froncisco,

wagon materials and later handling hardwood lumber exclusively. John Wigmore in the iarly 6O's;'Straut White & Co. in 1868; White Brothers in 1872; Allen & Tuggle Lumber Company in 1882; J. H. Dieckmann and E. F. NiehauS in the late 80's or earlv 9Os: were the old con:. cerhs. This city became the hardwood dirtributing center for the entire Westein part of the -United' States. Los Angdles, San Diego, Portlind, Seattle, end Vancouver drew their supplies from the Golden Gate. As population increased in the other coast cities hardwood yards were established, or softwood yards and planing mills put in stocks of hardwoods.

In Los Angeles in - 1893 Erastus J. Stanton, a former Michigan lumberman, established a lumber business handling principally Sugar and White Pine. In 1895 he put in a stock of Hardwoods. In 1904 the Hardwood Lumber Company, a branch of the Hardwood Lumber Company of Denver was established by Joseph Ringeman. In 19O6 this became the Western Hardwood Company. Los Angeles became the distributing center of Southern California.

In 1903 Ehrlich Harrison and Company established the pioneer hardwood yard in Seattle. Portland, Oregon, soon was a distributing center developing its hardwood business from planing mill stocks. The Emerson Hardwood Company under the management of Charles Stetson set up a band mill and veneer saw, imported large quantities of Japanese Oak logs and sold their product all along the Coast. The financial results were only indifierent and the' plant was purchased by Roger Sands of Seattle. It has been closed down for a number of years.

San Diego came into the field with Jerry Sullivan's hardwood yard. J. Fyfe Smith opened up in Vancouver, B. C. As time went on other hardwood yards started in all the cities mentioned.

The foregoing is simply a resume of the beginnings of the industry.

The hardwood industry of the Pacific Coast, has changed greatly in character since its beginnings.

In the early days wagon and carriage building was the principal eutlet for hardwoods, and the first hardwoods carried in stock were only as a part of the inventories of dealers in wagon and carriage builders materials. This, I believe, was true of all the present. distributing centers of the Coast. Boat and shipbuilding were probably the next industry to use hardwoods. As the manufacture of other commodities such as furniture, hardwood house trim, etc., were introduced, other woods than those used in the vehicle trade and boat building were added. In the seventies and eighties of the last century there was a very considerable furniture manufacturing industry in San Francisco, and Black Walnut was used in large quantities. A great deal of the furniture which we now call Mid-Victorian was made on the Coast. The Eastern furniture factories with their mass production and cheap freight rates on the finished goods practically destroyed the Coast indus-

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