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Multi-Million Oollar Plywood Industry (Celebrates
50th
24,000 Pacific Coast
Workers Employed in
Fast-Growing Field
' The fir plywood industry,
which in 1955 celebrates its 50-
year spectacular rise as produc
er of "America's Busiest Build
ing Materia 1," had humble
beginnings in a little box and
drum factory on the banks of
the Willamette River near Port
land, Ore.
A few hastily assembled pan
els, manufactured for display
at the 1905 Lewis and Clark
World's Fair Exposition in Port
land, marked the birth -jstf an
Q industry which in the"hqrt
space of a half century blossom
ed into a $400,000,000 dollar
annual business employing 24,
000 workers in nearly 100 ply
wood mills in Washington, Ore
gon and California.
These are the plants which
j compose the western fir ply-
wood industry accounting for
two-thirds of all the nation's ply
wood and 95 per cent of all
softwood plywood. During 1955,
through their industry trade as
sociation known as Douglas Fir
Plywood Association, the manu
facturers are maintaining a
sales promotion program drama
tized by the Golden Jubilee
Anniversary theme.
The industry highlighted 1955
commemorative events with its
annual meeting in Portland June
19 through 21 when 50 "Golden
Ideas" for building with fir ply
wood were unveiled.
Selection of Portland as the
fecal point for many Jubilee
year celebrations honors the city
where in the turbulent days of
1905 a handful of wood workers
turned out the first plywood
panels.
First Fir Plywood '
The birth scene was the Port
land Manufacturing Co., owned
and operated by Peter Autzen
and Gustav A. Carlson. Its su
perintendent was N. J. Bailey,
a lathe expert hired from the
mid-West. When World Fair of
ficials asked the firm to come
up with an exhibit, the three
men went to work. Other woods
had been used in making panels
in the East and in Europe but
fir plywood had never been
tried.
The panel crew at Portland
Manufacturing Co. cut fir ve-
neer on a crude-St. Joe lathe
and drie the veneer for two
weeks on a loading dock. Then
th veneer was run through a
steam kiln ordinarily used for
regular lumber.
The panels were placed to
gether with the glue applied
with a hand brush. Ten panels,
3-ply each, were in the first
group to go into a home-made
press built of planks. Regular
house jacks were, used to set
the. glue under pressure.
But the crudely-made ply
wood was a success at the Fair.
Easterners asked about it; west
erners commented on it. Port
land Manufacturing Co. got its
first orders soon after the Fair
opened.
Doors First Us
Door manufacturers were the
first buyers of the fir plywood
and for years the first plants
built were simply adjuncts to
door firms. Five years after the
Portland plant got underway,
William C. Wheeler and George
R. Osgood began making ply
wood for their Tacoma door bus
iness. Osgood's son, George J.
Osgood, and Henry McCleary
began a third plywood mill at
McCleary, Wash., in 1911. A
second Tacoma plant, Buffelen
Manufacturing Co., began mak
ing "panels in 1916 to become the
fourth fir plywood manufactur
er in the Pacific Northwest.
By this time, the industry was
making inroads into other mar
kets. Besides a bustling door
panel business, manufacturers
began selling plywood for use as
trunk stock and for drawer bot
toms. World War I curtailed fur
ther expansion but in 1920, Craig
Spencer and Gus Bartells start
ed Elliott Bay Mill company in
Seattle, the first plant erected
independent of a door panel con
cern. In 1921, J. J. Lucas and E. E.
Westman, a pair ofTacomans,
organized the industry's first
worker-owned plant at Olympia,
one of the great success stories
of the West. They sold $500
shares to 125 workers and
started Olympic Veneer comp
any. At first there were no pay
checks and no profits. Workers
lived together, cut each other's
hair and cut corners on all oth
er expenses. A year after it op
ened, the firm was staggering
but still on its feet, slowly for
ging ahead.. A few years later,
success was assured. Olympia
Veneer branched out, bought
two other plants and finally sold
the original plant in 1946, chang
ing the name to Associated Ply
wood Mills, Inc. Only a few
Medford
Tribune
Second Section MEDFORD, OREGON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1955 Pages 1-12
months ago the firm completed
a full cycle of development
when it was bought by United
States Plywood Corporation.
Significantly, about 22 per cent
of all fir plywood is now produc
ed by worker-owned mills.
The roaring 20's saw plywood
break into a new and expanding
market. Detroit automobile
manufacturers ordered hundreds
cf thousands of feet of panel
material for use in running
boards and floor boards, as well
as other smaller auto parts. In
1924, the industry produced 125,
000,000 feet of fir plywood.
Need for Waterproof Glue
But while the growing auto
mobile business " provided a
much-needed impetus in panel
sales, it also pointed up fir ply
wood's great early weakness
the glueline. For years, animal
glue -had been 'used. Later, an
adhesive made from casein, a
milk derivative, was developed
and in 1924, a soya bean glue
came on the market. Each was
an improvement of the other
but all had one draw-back
none could give a fully water
proof glueline, imposing a def
inite ceiling on the industry's
potential. .
The stock market crash of
1929 was followed by hard times
and the Jplywood industry was
rocked with a! succession of bad
fortune. Detroit slammed the
door in its face and quit buying
panels for automobiles. "The
glueline won't hold up," the
car makers said.
Several mills closed their
doors, temporarily, and one
went into receivership. Others
were forced to place their crews
on a two-day-a-week schedule.
Short rations and small pay
checks were common but the
industry dug in and held.
Meanwhile, Harbor Plywood
Corporation, a pioneer firm
formed in Aberdeen, Wash., in
the early 20's saw the hope of
a waterproof glueline as the key
to future markets previously un
touched by plywood. The man
agement team headed by A. R.
Wuest made a far-sighted move
when it set up a small laboratory
to look into the problem.
Wuest hired Dr. James V. Nev-
in to direct Harbor's search for
a water-proof glue that would
be suitable for volume produc
tion of fir plywood. Nevin, a tire
less innovator in everything
from 3-D screens to new uses
for wood waste, was joined by
Michael Pasquier, a young Uni
versity of Washington chemical
engineer at the time and Wil
liam Martin, another young tech
nical man from the University
of Southern California. The trio
went to work in the fall of 1933.
Days blended into weeks as Nev
in and his aides worked day and
night. The year 1934 was ply
wood's darkest as Nevin raced
against contracting markets and
falling prices..
In December 1935, Harbor
Plywood announced that Nevin
nad been successful. He had per
fected an exterior glue suitable
for production use on fir ply
wood. In January 1935, commer
cial production of exterior fir
plywood began and a short time
later, M and M Wood Working
Co. at Longview began to pro
duce a plywood with a syn
thetic phenolic resin waterproof
glueline.
This development is the most
important single technical ad
vance in the history of fir ply
wood's progress. It meant vast
new markets in building, in
boats, in farm structures, signs
and industrial uses. Today, fully
25 per cent of all fir plywood
is exterior type with waterproof
glue and some industry leaders
look for the day in the future
when all fir plywood will be
made with waterproof bond.
Meanwhile, as the depression
years wore on, the manufactur
ers intensified their efforts to
find a workable program of
joint industry promotion. Pre
vious attempts at joint promo
tion begun in the early 1920's
had lapsed or died.
In ' 1918, there was another
market turndown and the indus
try again joined hands, subscrib
ing a large joint promotion fund
to be administered by Douglas
Fir Plywood association.
W. E. Difford was brought in
to direct the program on the ba
sis of his outstanding record as
a leading sales promotion execu
tive which had brought him an
almost legendary reputation as
a "healer of sick business." Dif
ford brought a new concept to
plywood promotion in a program
that sparked the most spectac
ular era of new growth in the
industry's progress.
Earlier concepts of quality
based primarily on face grading
were revised to emphasize the
glueline as the key to plywood
quality. Standards were set up,
c
1
Fir IFlyuooti iepeffits Every tae
ti
- N iff sSssi JlJ&Ss' t
Fifty years ago the first fir plywood
was made at Portland, Oregon, and
was exhibited that year at the Lewis
and Clark Exposition in Portland. To
day, the fir plywood industry on the
West Coast is a $370,000,000 giant
and is still growing. ) .
The importance of the plywood
industry to the Rogue Valley area
is great indeed. Our people are
gainfully employed in the woods,
in transportation, in the plywood
mills and manufacturing plants. And
many others benefit as suppliers of
materials and services.
So today we salute the plywood
industry in its 50th year ... its
Golden Jubilee Anniversary.
J
Tii Cross-bonded
- 1 '-''w? I nmSm Panels of
V . V,:.w. - ' - r. ' iV A V ' nvlli Large. Ught. . I
BIG FREE SHOW
Sm the big "circus-type" exposition com
memorating fir plywood's golden jubilee.
See "Golden-ideas" for outdoor-living!
See how. plywood is manufactured!
See the colorful menagerie of circus ani
mals, all made of plywood! See all this,
and more, at Medford High Stadium,
Saturday and Sunday.
TIMBER -PRODUCTS -COJ&PANY
MEDFORD, OREGON
field exposure studies begun and
industry-wide quality control was
based on a statistically random
ized sampling program.'
Difford put trained men in the
field to render market level ad
vice and service to plywood sup
pliers, and users and to contact
code officials and lending au
torities. Emphasis in advertising
was switched from the consumer
to the specifier, the architect and
builder. Simultaneously, the in
dustry concentrated much of its
effort on lumber dealers with
the result that today they sell 50
per cent of total fir plywood out
put. Basic research to develop
engineering data on plywood was
launched looking toward devel
opment of plywood use in ad
vanced construction techniques.
The industry's product was
carefully standardized and DFPA
was the first trade association in
the country to register an asso
ciation grademark. The entire
promotion program was keyed
to the new grademarks as the
banner of quality.
With customer confidence in
the product building in the field,
markets again expanded, and by
early 1939 the industry was back
on its feet.
When the Japanese struck
Pearl Harbor, the nation plunged
into war. Thirty-one plywood
mills turned over their " entire
output to government needs.
Plywood built huts and offices
and theaters in the South Pa
cific and in the Aleutians. Ply
wood PT boats staged the first
forays against the Japanese dur
ing the grim early days of the
war and plywood assault boats
carried troops across the crucial
crossing of the Rhine in 1944.
Plywood-made box cars and
crates for airplane and ship
parts. Plywood 30,000 feet of
it went into every Liberty ship
built during the war.
In one of the great tributes to
the soundness of the industry
quality control measures insti
tuted by DFPA, there was never
a government inspector in a ply
wood plant during the war. The
graaemarK was all that was
needed.
With victory, tne mills re
turned to peace-time production.
No "war babies," plywood had
not profited but had actually suf
fered much from the restrictions
of the war. It had to make a fresh
start. .'
As the post war housing boom
hit the .nation, plywood was I peace-time housing. As fast as
ready. Millions' of feet of fir ply- new families formed, homes had
wood went into GI and other to be built. The lightweight, easy-
o .
i'rthtiay
to-handle plywood panels proved
(Continued on Page 3)
Contributes to the Prosperity
and Stability of
Jackson County
The fir plywood industry as a major payrdftl builder in this area is well
known. In addition to direct wages, the industry also spends thousands of
dollars yearly for supplies, services, taxes, licenses, fees. Every store, every
office, every service station, every bank, every public utility in Jackson Courv---ty
benefits either directly or indirectly from the fir plywood industry in our
locality. " ' . ;
The business of manufacturing fir plywood is 50 years old this year, so
we are happy to join the Nation's salute to this $370,000,000 West Coast
industry. And we have faith that as hew markets . . . new uses . . . are de
veloped for fir plywood, our region will continue to grow and prosper.
BIG FREE SHOW
To commemorate fir plywood's 50th an
niversary, a colorful circus-type exposition
has been arranged, and will appear at Med
ford High School grounds, Saturday and
Sunday, Oct: 22 and 23. Hours 2 to 9 p.m.
each day. This show will entertain, will in
form, will show how fir plywood can add
to your living pleasure when used around
your home . . . indoors or outdoors. There's
something of interest for all ages, so plan
to attend.
I TxWfl Cross-bonded S
1905 III 1955)
T4
17 COOT HORBHAl. DAHtf
MTOfOftO BRANCH
UTS BUIIO OSEGON TOGfMEK
TV
ltlilkv if ff'
jilt !
See new "Golden Ideas for
indoor-outdoor living I.
See sound-color movies on
plywood manufacture.
V See colorful "menagerie of
fir plywood circus animals.
l See dramatic displays
""TV depicting plywood industry's
growth and importance.
IN MEDFORD
Hctoter 22-2
2 p.m.til 9 p.m.
AT THE
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL GROUNDS
MEDFORD
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