Long-Bell's Kelso Plant to Be Biggest I in History of Lumber

Never in the history of the Iumber industry has there been built upon this earth any lumber manufacturing institution that compared in size and. pretentiousness to that institution which the Irong-Bell Lumber Company is now building with an army of trained men and executives on the banks of the Columbia River, in the State of -Washington.

No effort will be made in this space to detail the tremend.ous things that are being d.one there in preparation for the fifty years of logging and lumbering which this great concern proposes to do in the Pacific Northwest.

Simply some of thq interesting men and things will be shown.

The Long-Bell Lumber Company has purchased near Kelso, Washington, 70,000 acres of the most wonderful timber that grows on earth.

This company has likewise purchased several thousand acres of land at the confluence of the Columbia and Cowlitz rivers in Washington, on which land it has begun the construction of great sawmills, docks, storage yard's, shops, hotels, homes, business and. amusement blocks, and the incidental equipment and. conveniences of the most mod'ern communities.

The plant will be located inland fffty miles from the Pa' cific Oc1an, about half way between Portland, Oregon, and the ocean. It will be on the line of all freighting vsesels from Portland to the sea.

Three trunk line railroads will serve the plant. So by water and rail, the whole world. will be the market of the Long' BelI product.

Two great sawmills will be constructed. at once, and they will be equippecl to operate day and night.

A thircl mill is planned., which will be built after the first two are operating.

These mills are expected to cut 600,000,000 feet of lumber annually, or nearly 100,000,000 more than the Long-Bell l".rumber Company is now prod.ucing annually in its eleven big Southern mills in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas.

The first two mills will stand side by side, with just a log pond between them. It will be more than a year from now before these mills are completecl.

The construction work follows two entire years of tremendous efrort, during which time the entire property has been exhaustively surveyed and mapped. The logging has been laid out to the last tree on the timber, so that when they start they will know where the first tree is to be cut on the ffrst logging spur, and where the last spur will cut the last tree.

The Kelso plant will require the services of 4,000 men when fully completed and operating.

It will have a large outlet for part of its production in California via the water route, aud. plans to that end have been under consideration.

S. M. Morris, formerly manager of the l-rong-Bell plant at lrufkin, Texas, and a young man of great ability, is General Manager of the Long-Bell affairs throughout the West, and at present living at Kelso.

J. W. Martin, for twenty years associated with Lrong-Bell manufacturing activities in Louisiana, has returned. to the fold and is manager of ' construction of the three mills at Kelso. Mr. Martin is an outstanding figure in the lumber industry, and an authority on mill construction.

C. A.Huffman is construction engineer, and J. M. Raglantl is ofrice manager and chief clerk. Wesley Vandercook is chief engineer.

The great Kelso operation is simply a gradual transfer of its operations in the South to the great Northwest.

The mills at Kelso will probably be cutting for fifty years.

AII this new product will be branded with the I-.rong-Bell brand, every human in the Long-Bell organization being thoroughly sold. on the wonders that advertising and' tr-ademarking has done for their company and for their product.

While the I-.rong-BeII mills in the South have a number of years yet to run, the executives have planned their timber cutting so that all of them cut out at about the same time, probably five years from now. Long before that time the Kelso mills wiII be cutting and distributing their huge output.