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The following Oregon-American Lumber Mill history is excerpted from VERNONIA, A POCKET IN THE WOODS By Ann Fulton, Ph.D. with images from the Vernonia Pioneer Museum and Columbia County Museum Association collections.
The following Oregon-American Lumber Mill history is excerpted from VERNONIA, A POCKET IN THE WOODS By Ann Fulton, Ph.D. with images from the Vernonia Pioneer Museum and Columbia County Museum Association collections.
THE GIANT TREES TRANSFORM VERNONIA
The towering Douglas firs that dominated Vernonia's landscape were the source of the town's transformation and economic boom after 1920. From a small and unknown rural town, Vernonia became one of the centers of Oregon's modern timber industry. The small spurts of growth Vernonia experienced before the 1920s were nothing compared to what happened after the railroad and the huge electric sawmill arrived. Two corporate giants engineered these intertwined ventures to make Vernonia "the biggest little city in Oregon."
After timber holding companies bought up the land, timber interests began to dominate the economic life of Vernonia. National market forces fueled corporate ownership of timber land. Forest depletion in the upper Midwest, central and eastern Oregon and the South forced timber interests to look for other locations. New logging technology, especially railroad logging, and increased demand for housing in the East brought companies to Vernonia's hills. The construction of more railroads and roads throughout the United States also made timber prices soar.
The high demand for timber created during and after World War I produced another change in landownership patterns. With more profits to be made in logging, more timber holding companies sold their land to sawmill operators, such as the Oregon American-Lumber Company.
Oregon was a magnet for timber companies in the early 1920s. Called the most important lumber manufacturing state in the country by 1922, it had one-fifth of the nation's standing timber. Most of its four hundred and fifty-two billion board feet were west of the Cascades.
THE OREGON-AMERICAN LUMBER COMPANY
The Oregon-American Lumber Company played the greatest role in transforming Vernonia into a booming timber town. David C. Eccles, the company president, was the son of Utah railroad and timber baron David Eccles. Attracted by the high prices for timber after the war, Eccles bought a large parcel of timber land west of Keasey from the DuBois Lumber Company. Eccles bought the old survey of the Pacific Navigation and Railroad Company and soon put engineering crews to work. He incorporated the Portland, Astoria & Pacific Railroad (PA&P) in 1919. Eccles planned to build a railroad to get the logs to the Columbia River. The PA&P Railroad would be a non-electric freight extension to Vernonia and Keasey from Banks, where it connected with United Railways.
TWO GIANT CORPORATIONS STRIKE A DEAL
When Eccles' plan failed in 1921, the Kansas City-based Central Coal & Coke Company (CC&CC) bought Eccles' tracts and made the Oregon-American Lumber Company its subsidiary. CC&CC was attracted to the area because the timber tracts it bought from Eccles were considered "some of the very best timber in the West." In the lumber business for over twenty-five years in Texas and Louisiana, CC&CC also owned coal mines in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Wyoming.
Corporate bargaining between timber and railroad giants produced one of the biggest electric sawmills in the country in Vernonia. David Eccles and CC&CC worked together to sell the unfinished PA&P to the United Railways Company, a subsidiary of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway Company (SP&S). SP&S was a subsidiary of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroad companies controlled by railroad tycoon James J. Hill. Hill bought United Railways in 1909.
Railroad logging played the key role in the construction of the huge new mill that cut two hundred and fifty thousand board feet per eight-hour shift. Using railroads in the woods and the newest forms of milling technology required capital. To compensate for the capital outlay companies needed to increase the number of logs cut and the size of milling operations. These conditions set the stage for the arrival of what was called the "monster mill" in Vernonia.
James J. Hill in 1916
AN INDUSTRIAL COMPOUND IN THE UPPER NEHALEM VALLEY
The Oregon-American mill was a landmark event not only for Vernonia but for the entire Pacific Northwest timber industry. The mill was the first electric sawmill built of concrete and steel in the region and one of the first mills to kiln-dry common lumber. One of the largest modern sawmills in the country, the Oregon-American mill generated millions of dollars of income and produced millions of board feet of lumber. It created a large industrial complex in the heart of the Upper Nehalem Valley.
The first phase of construction of the mill complex was a logging camp sixteen miles up Rock Creek. This camp, named after Oregon-American's manager for logging and land W.H. McGregor, employed one hundred to one hundred and seventy-five men in 1922. Women also earned wages working as cooks, waitresses and laundresses. Until the mill started up in 1924, the men shipped the logs cut at Camp McGregor to Rafton, near Wilbridge on the Columbia River.
Rafton near Burlington, Oregon
Vernonia+May+1928,+Sheet+11.pdf
CC&CC bought two hundred and ten acres east of Vernonia's city limits for the mill. The mill and storage area occupied one hundred and ten acres. Contractors excavated land to create a forty-two acre mill pond that took months to complete. Using men and horses, the builders created a dike and pumped water from the Nehalem River. The logs were dumped into the pond by an electrical winch over a concrete dump. The railroad track ran on top of the dike on three sides of the pond. The logs went up a concrete and steel log slip into the sawmill.
Clearing for the mill started in 1922. The estimated cost of construction in 1923 was $1.5 million. H.F. & K. Lumber Company, a St. Helens company, set up a temporary sawmill on the property to cut the logs used for the buildings. The concrete and steel sawmill would be three stories high. Kansas City architect J.J. Monohan designed the very modern facility and construction began in 1923. Wisconsin Iron & Bridge Company completed the steel work with a crew of thirty men.
The sawmill was ninety-two feet wide and two hundred and ninety-two feet long with a large addition. The mill had a boiler room, fuel room, machine shop, storage room, drying-room sorters and twenty-eight dry kilns. The three storage sheds were each two hundred and fifty-eight feet wide and five hundred and ninety-four feet long. The two dressed lumber sheds were eighty-eight feet wide and six hundred and eighty-eight feet long; the loading platform was fifteen hundred feet long.
Inside the mill the logs rolled off onto steel log decks. Steel conveyors carried the bark and trash into a teepee burner. The logs moved to steel carriages and then to two band saws. A gang and a horizontal resaw were the two other main manufacturing units. A lathe mill salvaged what was left in the slabs.
After the lumber left the trimmers it moved over a green grading chain and mechanical stackers stockpiled it. The kilns dried the wood. The Oregon-American mill was exceptional in having its entire product dry-kilned. Seven lines of overhead monorail ran through the mill to transport the sized and graded lumber to the huge storage sheds. The monorail allowed lumber to move from the dry sorters or the sheds to the planing mill. The planing mill had ten motor-driven surfacers, matchers and moulders as well as resaws, ripsaws, cut-off saws and piling room equipment. Lumber moved to cars or a storage shed after it left the planing mill.
All this machinery needed a machine shop. Men began building and repairing machinery in the machine shop, the first building completed, in 1923. E.E. Hayes, the plant superintendent, called it the best shop "west of the Mississippi River." The mill also had its own power plant, a large steel and concrete building with a battery of boilers and three turbines.
When Superintendent Hayes described the office and company housing that were pan of the mill complex in 1922, he pointed out that they were carefully "constructed along lines that will enhance the natural scenic beauty of the locality." The office, located on the hill above the mill, fit its forest environment. The L-shaped building had a rustic architectural style that made it look at home in the Oregon woods. Hundreds of employees, sheltered by the roof over the spacious porch, waited for their checks at the pay window. The cleats in their logging boots left permanent marks on the porch floor. Inside the building, ten to twelve employees conducted the company's business and handled the paperwork.
"MILLVIEW"
Vernonia began to burst at the seams when people came to the city to work in the new mill. The Oregon-American Lumber Company preferred to hire family men because they were more stable workers and this created an urgent need for houses. Until more houses were built, a tent city on the site of Washington School provided homes. Editor Paul Robinson observed: "There are opportunities for many enterprises ... especially... to build four or five room cottages to rent for $10 or $12 or more per month, or sell on the installment plan." J.H. Sell was one of several people that advertised property in the Vernonia Eagle.
Oregon-American could not wait for the local people to build homes. Anticipating seven hundred and fifty men working in two shifts by 1925, the company built its own housing complex on the hill north of the plant between 1923 and 1924. It also built a few cottages on both sides of Bridge Street. The hill where Oregon-American Lumber Company purchased thirty acres was known as "Spencer Hill" because it was part of the Israel Spencer family's homestead. "Millview" was the new neighborhood's company name. Before too long everyone called the area "O-A Hill."
O-A Hill was a beautiful neighborhood designed by a Kansas City landscape architect. Its graceful trees, alleys and winding streets with names such as "Louisiana" and "Arkansas" reminded some of the inhabitants of their Southern heritage. Millview consisted of sixty-six bungalows of different sizes built for department heads and permanent employees. The architecture, Superintendent Hayes promised, would suit the natural beauty of the location. The bungalows with gabled roofs and porches, wood columns and porch railings all painted chestnut brown with cream trim, fit in perfectly with the surrounding forest.
The houses on O-A Hill varied in size and sophistication according to the intended occupant. Houses for the highest ranking employees stood at the base of the streets. These substantial homes displayed the managers' status. The smaller bungalows were less grand. The company proudly advertised that each home had a bathroom, electric lights and water. Each house also had a detached single car garage at the back and a wood shed. Mill employees stocked the sheds with slabwood for fuel.
A MILL TOWN NOT A COMPANY TOWN
Vernonia was a mill town but not a company town. The fortunes of the Oregon-American Lumber Company dominated the economy, but the company did not own all the businesses and land in Vernonia. When the president and directors of CC&CC visited to see what progress had been made on the plant's construction, they met with prominent town leaders to define the relationship between the company and the town.
Charles S. Keith, the president of CC&CC and other CC&CC employees sat down with Vernonia business people to set the terms of that relationship. One of the first accommodations CC&CC requested was to keep mill property out of the city limits to eliminate fees and regulations. In return CC&CC promised to be generous in donating land and services to Vernonia. A key feature of the new relationship was the absence of a company store. CC&CC left retail businesses to the local people. The company wanted to focus on milling logs, where the real profits were, rather than on minding a store. Of course that plan pleased the shopkeepers.
Central Coal & Coke Company required more workers than the Upper Nehalem Valley had. To fill the need for unskilled and cheap labor, CC&CC brought in small groups of Filipino, Hindu, Japanese and African-Americans workers. CC&CC imported some of these people from its Louisiana and Texas operations. Workers were available because the loggers cut down many Southern forests by the 1920s. The company provided segregated housing for them west of the mill at the site that became Anderson Park. Within the segregated area, each ethnic group lived in its own section.
The Filipinos that came to Vernonia were experienced timber workers. They created their own small colony among the immigrant mill workers and formed the Filipino Brotherhood of Vernonia to assist each other. This group also invited everyone to learn about their country by holding tributes to national heroes and other cultural events at Vernonia High School.
CC&CC brought in approximately twenty African-American families from the South in 1925. The company followed the railroad and hotel industries' well-established Northern tradition of importing African-American men as cheap labor for the least desirable jobs; many of the men worked on the green chain in the new mill. Approximately fifty African-Americans lived in several rows of simple, three-room board cabins; electric lights were the only modern utility.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Vernonia grew by leaps and bounds after the Oregon-American mill opened. Before the mill, 350 people lived in Vernonia. Four years later, the city's population jumped to 1,500 in 1926, During the 1920s the size of Vernonia's downtown grew too. The western half of the commercial area expanded. Part of the west side also became the new "rising home center" because so many houses were built there. The growth west of Rock Creek equalized the development on both sides of the city.
By 1928 Vernonia had 2,500 people. Within six short years the city's population was seven times larger than it was in 1922 and the number of public buildings tripled. Vernonia was the classic example of a boom town expanding overnight.
THE OLD-GROWTH FOREST DISAPPEARS
Just as the transformation of the old settlement of Vernonia made residents yearn for the past, so did the disappearance of the old-growth forest. People began to pay more attention as the number of huge trees dwindled in the late 1920s. When the Oregon-American Lumber Company logged a very old tree near Camp McGregor in August 1929, the New York Times even picked up the story. One of the oldest in the area, the three hundred and nine feet tall tree was a sapling in 1095, the year of the First Crusade. The loggers cut down most of these huge trees but their towering beauty remained in peoples' memories by the end of the 1920s.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
The Oregon-American Lumber Company had its peak year of production in 1928, right before the Depression. During that year the mill produced one hundred and sixty-five million board feet of lumber and employed seven hundred and fifty workers on two shifts. By the end of 1930 shut-downs began. The planing mill stopped operating in February 1932 and by April the entire mill closed until 1936.
The Vernonia Airport was the largest Depression-era relief project. The building of the airport was similar in theme and importance to the railroad's arrival only thirteen years earlier. Once again Vernonia became more connected to the outside world. The project, funded by the Civil Works Administration and the State Emergency Relief Administration, started on forested land in 1934. The government paid workers fifty cents an hour.
1943 Vernonia High School Yearbook dedication
WORLD WAR II
World War II brought grief and loss to Vernonia. The war also ushered in full employment and a sense of community purpose. World War IIs greatest impact was the end it brought to the Great Depression. Driven away by wartime industrial expansion, the problems of unemployment, deflation and industrial sluggishness disappeared in Vernonia by 1942.
The Vernonia Eagle reported on February 26, 1942: "It may seem strange but it may come to pass that women will be working in the O-A mill..." By April 1942 eleven of the fifty-five women who applied for mill work had jobs in the planing mill, shipping department and in the dry shed on the day shift. The plant superintendent reported: "they are doing very well." Twenty women were pulling lumber, working on stackers, sorters and transfer cars at the mill by June 1942.
Happiness flooded the town when Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945. People poured into the streets. Sirens and whistles went off and a celebration started that lasted into the night. The Oregon-American Lumber Corporation shut the mill and its camps for a two-day celebration.
CONSERVATION, A NEW CHAPTER IN THE TIMBER INDUSTRY
A postwar emphasis on conservation opened a new chapter in Vernonia's timber industry. As one observer noted: "Prior to World War II there was no reforestation, and the logged-over land was left as a hideous reminder of the once proud virgin timber." When the early logging companies chopped down the old-growth trees, they created Vernonia's postwar dilemma of having no more trees to cut. Everyone knew that the Oregon-American mill's days were numbered.
After World War II the timber industry focused on the business of reforestation to stay in business. H.V. Simpson, the secretary of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association, said in 1945: "The West Coast lumber industry today is in a state of transition which will have a profound effect on the future economy...We are changing from the harvesting of wild, virgin timber to the orderly cropping of forest products."
NEW COMPANIES TAKE OVER THE MILL
Long-Bell Lumber Company bought the Oregon-American Lumber Corporation in May 1953. The International Paper Company (IP), based in Longview, Washington, merged with the Long-Bell Lumber Company on November 5, 1956. IP bought out Long-Bell with the intention of closing the mill and concentrating on tree fanning.
Railroad conductor Vince Monaco and engineer Chet Alexander, who had worked for the Oregon-American Lumber Corporation since 1922, brought the last load of logs in from Camp McGregor on Locomotive 105. Locomotive 105 pulled logs into Vernonia for many years and had a following of Vernonia children and train enthusiasts who loved to watch it steam into town.
The sawyers cut the first log on July 11, 1924 and the last log on September 11, 1957. Three months later the planing mill and shipping department closed. During its thirty-five years of operation the Oregon-American Lumber Corporation cut two and a half billion feet of lumber. The company ran two shifts during its peak. It gave the town a 107 monthly payroll of up to $35,000 that earned Vernonia the nickname of "Payroll City." When International Paper Company decided to close the big mill, it started a gradual lay-off in June 1957.
C.L. "Connie" Anderson, now general manager of the Vernonia operation for International Paper, supervised the shut-down. Anderson came to Vernonia in 1924 as a timber dock foreman and rose through the ranks of the Oregon-American Lumber Corporation. With the help of Merle Ruhl and Mrs. Ralph Valpiani in the office, three watchmen, three caretakers and three men in the woods, Anderson closed what had once been one of the biggest electric sawmills in the country.
Movie-makers burned part of the mill for "Ring of Fire, film made in Vernonia in 1958. The Vernonia Eagle reported "The building was burned as a part of that show and was a spectacular sight and experience for those who participated." The disappearance of a portion of the big mill brought home the reality that the city had to make a new future.
The planer shed at the Oregon-American Mill ws burned as part of filming "Ring of Fire." The fire burned so fiercely that the crew abandoned the train to be used in the filming. A local railroad enthusiast jumped aboard and moved the train to safety.
THE INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY DONATES PROPERTY
The International Paper Company gave property it owned in and around Vernonia to the city. Connie Anderson presented the deed to Mayor Charley Hickman on October 31, 1958 at City Hall. International Paper Company's gift to Vernonia included a thirty-seven acre tract on O-A Hill with sixty-six houses, the company office and a building lot in the business district. The company also deeded seven and one-half acres outside the city limits to be used for a park.
The city turned the seven and one-half acre parcel bordering the confluence of the Nehalem River and Rock Creek into a park in 1960. Anderson Park, named in honor of IP general manager Connie Anderson, was located where the Oregon-American Lumber Company built houses for its African-American, Filipino, Japanese and Hindu workers.
The land that the company donated in the business district became "Shay Park." Volunteers cleared the property at the corner of Bridge and First streets to create an outdoor logging display in May 1958. They built a removable track and Shay Engine #102, donated by the Long-Bell Division of International Paper, traveled to its new location at the west end of Rock Creek Bridge under its own steam. Shay Park became a piece of history set in the middle of the downtown business district. It encouraged everyone to remember the hardships and successes of the early logging industry.
The Columbia County Historical Society established a museum in the company office on top of O-A Hill in 1963. The old mill office filled up with bits and pieces from Vernonia's past.
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