INVESTORS' AND HOMESEEKERS'. EDITION
in i ii
Ml
FOURTH SECTION
uiaitng
PUBLISHES FULL ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORT
PAGES 25 TO 32
COVERS THE MORNING FIELD ON THE LOWER COLUMBIA
33rd YEAR. NO. 47
ASTORIA, OREGON, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1908
PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS
BILLIONS OF TIMBER AT OUR DOOR
WHILE, perhaps, the fume of Astoria rent peculiarly upon the
magnificent salmon trade she command throughout the civi -
Iked world, bIio U widely known and appreciated for the great business
he docs in lumber, scores of millions of feet going henco, domestic and
foreign, each year.
North and aouth and cunt of the city, for hundreds of miles, in
Oregon and Washington, stretch almost unbroken forests of gigantic
Oregon fir, with commensurate quantities of spruce, hemlock, cedars,
and all millablo woods; hundreds of thousands of acres in extent and
the vast majority of it, as yet, virgin. From these sources are drawn
continually the supplies that keep the six great milling plants on
Astoria harbor front going, night and day, through the years, to fill
the bottoms of hundreds of steamships, ships and schooners, that hark
to the nearest and farthest markets of the world.
From logger to sailor, the handling of this enormous output in
volve millions of money in lands, camps, railways, yards, plants and
mills, let alone the hugo payrolls that go on interminably, with rare
lapses, such as prevails at this writing (duo to the reaction following
the "stringency," and abiding the issue of the rate-case Instituted by
the lumbermen of the Northwest against the railways, now pending
before the Interstate Commerce Commission). The sum of the business
as represented at Astoria constitutes one of the principal factors in
her commerce, and the signs are numerous and assuring of the steady
growth of the industry; since there are very many owners of forest
tract indigenous to this market, that have never broached their hold
ings nor taken steps to get the raw materials even started for market;
of these may be mentioned the MeCormack interests, with 60,000 acres
of virein timber, and a mill-site already purchased in close proximity
to the city; the Hammond interests, with seventy odd thousand of acres
and a lupcrb water frontage at the town of Hammond for mills and
docks; beside other lesser investments of the same character still await
ing practical development. By no possible mischance, save the ravage
of a forest Are of unprecedented scope and volumne, can this port ever
bo deprived of the illimitable expansion of this great industry; while
the attendant advantages accruing from the erection or mills and rae
toriea for the manufacture of kindred supplies of wooden base, is
always with us, a number of them already seeking a foothold in the
city and its immediate neighborhood, among which is the shipbuilding
business, which is particularly affiliated to such exliausiicss timocr re
sources as abound hereabout
A short review of the lumbering interests and plants in this section,
will not be amiss at this junctures
The largest of the six big plants in and about Astoria, is that of
the Tongue Point Lumbering Company, established betwixt rail and
water transportation, under the westerly shoulder of tho famous point
of land jutting into tho Columbia and from which tho mill takes its
name. Tho eompony is equipped with two Allis-Chalmers Co. band
mills, one 9-foot and one 8-foot; two Mershon band rcsaws and a large
Allis-Chalmers Company 66-mch by 10-inch edgcr; slashers, trimmers,
lath machines, etc The plant has a capacity of 200,000 feet of lumber
and 30,000 lath in 10 hours. The planing mill contains nine machines
and is 110x180 feet in size, with a wing 60x85 feet.
The box factory is 60x188 feet in size and has a capacity of 35,000
feet of lumber in 10 hours. It is equipped with three cut-off machines,
three edgers, a 60-inch Mershon band rcsaw and a two-color printing
press. Tho company makes a specialty of fine fir flooring and has a
large shod for flooring alone that holds 1,000,000 feet. In all the com
pany has five large sheds capable of covering 6,000,000 feet of lumber
Alongsido of the sheds is a loading track, over which projects a shed
roof so that loading can be done under cover, which is a notable ad
vantage owing to tho number of rainy days at Astoria. In all the
company has about 1200 feet of loading track, capable of accommodat
ing 25 cars. The company aims to ship about 250 carloads of lumber a
month when cars are available, besides doing a large cargo business.
During the first 10 months of 1907 the company shipped out 363
carloads of lumber to Eastern markets; six steamers and one sailing
vessel, for foreign delivery; 26 steamers and 12 sailing vessels for
domestic markets: its foreign shipments involving 8,138,000 feet; its
domestic deliveries aggregating 32,400,000 feet; the entire output in-.
volvinir the cutting and use of 35,000,000 feet of logs.
The company maintains a working force, in logging camps and
at the mill, of 350 people, and has a pay-roll aggregating $30,000 per
month or $360,000 per annum; and has botween seven and eight thou
sand acres of the finest timberlands in the lower Columbia Valley. The
officers of the great concern ares George W. nume, president; C. E
TTiimfl. vlce-nresident: Jay Deming, secretary; with E. B. Hazen,
manager, at the Astoria office, and to whom the Astorian is indebted
for the details above set out.
Among the active lumbering industries at this port may be men
tioned in a justifiably pridoful way, the Astoria Box Company, which
controls not only its own large business, but is the established clearing
house for the industry in this city and section. It operates one of the
smaller, but exceedingly modern plants, and up to November 1st, last
year, exported, in car shipments, to Eastern California, 1,250,000 feet
of fine lumber; while its sea cargoes footed up to 3,750,000 feet, besides
2 000,000 feet of shooks sent out on the coast-wise steamers; its local
output being, for that period, 4,000,000 of lumber and 2,000,000 shooks;
making a handsome total of 13,000,000 feet of stuff, taken from its
booms which floated 15,000,000 feet of logs during that time.
The company employs 105 men constantly, often increasing the
force in its yards and logging camps, and handles a pay-roll of $80,000,
io tho immense good of the community, since it is one of the concerns
that possesses the rare faculty of keeping in uninterrupted service long
lists of home-people, a decided advantage to the city as well as to the
management. '
A contiguous, but not strictly speaking local plant, of great value,
is the Columbia Mills division of the Simpson Lumber Company, at
Knappton, on the north shore of the Columbia and directly opposite
this city, and within close enough touch, as to distance, and business
intimacy, to make it an Astoria industry.
This concern sent five steamer cargoes coast-wise during the first
ten months of 1907, beside ten schooner cargoes; and loaded seven other
Railing vessels for the Orient and Australia; of which shipments 1,818,
489 feet went across the Pacific, and 10,461,042 feet were despatched to
the north and south home coasts. The output being cut from 18,000,000
feet of logs. The foreign shipments were valued at $102,277.47, and
those sent to home porta, at $135,993.55. '
The company itself possesses a fleet of sailing vessels; and the
lumber end of the concern keeps a force of 60 people going from one
year's end to the other, and meets an annual pay-roll of upwards of
$50,000.
The fine plant of the Old Oregon Mills, at Warrenton, just across
Young's Bay from this city, is among the active agencies of this big
industry and figures largely in the heavy gross output from Astoria
water and rail lines. During an operating period of six months in 1907
the company's car shipments to California and the East aggregated
144, comprising 3,960,475 feet; while its domestic cargoes coast-wise by
steamer, totalled 2,300,301 feet and the sailing fleet at its lower bay
docks carried away 5,101,321 feet, making the handsome output of
Logging Company, of this city; The Warren & Lester Logging Com
pany, of Cullaby Lake, in this city; Kelly Brothers, at Blind Slough
and Clifton, with four miles of railway, well equipped; The Oregon
Timber & Lumber Company, at Parsons, Oregon, with seven miles of
railway, and probably the heaviest output of any of the concern so
engaged; The Jennings & McRae Logginar Company, with three miles
of trackage into the big woods; the O. K. Logging Company, near
Bugby; Stevens Brothers, of Skamokawa, with a railway projected and
now building; the Alger Logging Company, at Skamokawa, with eight
miles of railway; the Bell Logging Company, at Deep Biver, with a
railway and several camps, and headquarters at Cathlamet; the
Chinook Logging Company, on Deep River, with four miles of railway;
the Pacific Logging Company, on Deep River, with eight miles of
forest tracks to serve it; the Gray's Bay Logging Company, headed by
Brix Brothers, of this city; the Bagley Logging Company, at Knappa,
beside numerous small concerns that make up a wide and busy field of
operation in this great line of produce and contribute handsomely to
the immense total of logs cut, hauled, floated and boomed at tidewater,
whence they are towed to the mill sites all over the lower valley of the
Columbia; and Astoria is the common center and depot for supplies
and maintenance and for the exchange of the financial elements of tho
huge, and expanding business.
Among the allied industries of the Astoria lumber field and in
ultimate touch with this city, is the Westport Lumber Company, located
on the Oregon bank of the Columbia a score of miles to the east of
this city.
The concern maintains business headquarters at Portland, under
the able management of John W. Palmer, while the superintendeney
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11,362,097 feet. In the doing of this 108 people found steady employ
ment, the capacity of the mills being 80,000 feet on a 10-hour daily
run, on a monthly pay-roll approximating $8000 per month. The plant
at Warrenton is always under process of some staple improvement that
is permanent and appreciable in its steadily increasing business; and
its trade has a tendency of the same agreeable sort.
One of the busiest and most successful of the great plants in opera
tion here is the Clatsop Mill Company, whose fine milling machinery
but rarely ceases to work. Last year this concern cut 18,712,954 feet
of logs; and shipped a fair half of it hence as follows: On 223 cars,
to the East and California, 5,585,127 feet; on domestic sailing vessels,
seven cargoes, aggregating 2,683,000 feet; and on domestic steamers,,
five cargoes, aggregating 812,000 feet; the balance entering the local
trade very largely.
The basic industry xipon which the big lumber interests thrive is,
of course, the logging business, which is maintained hereabout by 17
prominent concerns, cutting and hauling.or floating, from three to four
hundred millions of feet per annum; the leading companies in this
phase of the business being, The Sorenson Logging Company, with six
miles of railway into their forest lands: The Benson Logging Company,
with six miles of railway: The Willamette Pulp & Paper Company;
The Johnson Logging Company, at Knappa; The Peterson & Frye
of he plant at Westport is consigned to the equally competent custody
of James T. Stoddard.
the mills have a capacity of 100,000 feet of lumber per day, em
ploy 100 men the year round on a pay-roll of $10,000 per month, and
Fends its output domestic and foreign by rail and sea cargo to all dis
tances and in all directions.
Another fine lumber plant closely allied with the interests of As
toria, is that of the D. L. Kelly Lumber Company, at Warrenton, six
miles west of this city on the bay shore, of which D. L. Kelly is tha
head and F. G. Kelly is manager, with Dan Malarkey, the younger, aa
superintendent.
The concern not only maintains its fine sawmill and planing mill I
at Warrenton, but operates its own shingle mill there, and at Westport;
with retail yard at Seaside, and an extensive logging camp at Clifton.
The plant is estimated to be worth $75,000, and has a daily output of
40,000 feet of lumber and 75,000 shingles per day, and cuts 10,000,000
feet of logs per annum. It keeps 55 hands going the year round and
has a pay-roll of $4000 per month.
Its shipments are made almost exclusively by rail, though it does,
forward some of its product coastwise in vessels, with San Francisco
as its main market. It is a strictly modern plant and rates high in these
sources of supply the whole coast over. ,