THEW. A. WOODARD LUMBER COMPANY: A Case Study in "Rugged Individual1sm11 by FRED D. STURDIVANT A THESIS Presented to the Sohool of Business Administration and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfilll!lent of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration June 1961 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 'l'he writing of this paper would not have been possible tfithout the consent and coope:r;,ation of the fo?'mer executives of the w. A. Wooda?'d Lumber Company. I am pal'tioularly grate- ful to Walter A. Woodard for devoting many hours of his time to being inte?'viewed. He was tireless in his efforts to pro- vide the most accurate answers to questions that often dealt with events many years in the past. Neither he no?' any other member of his staff edited the manuscript or requested the omission of any pertinent data. I am also in debt to Mrs. M. Louise Smith who has been r-ir. Woodard's private secretary for over thirty-five years. Her thorough knowledge of the company records greatly facil- itated the research. Her familiarity with the history of the company was second only to that of Mr. Woodard. Any semblance of orde?' or proper presentation should be credited to Professor Kenneth Wiggins Porter of the Department of History and Professor w. Dwaine Richins of the School of Business Administ?'ation, University of Oregon. And thanks to my wife, Pat, for her help and patience. TABLE OF CONTEMTS Chapter Page I. "HUSTLING FOR A GRUBSTAKE, 11 1900•1920 • • • • • l The Early Background of Walter A. Woodard • • l The Fol'l!lation or the Company .•••••• • • 11 II. 11 0NLY THE BEGINIUNG, 11 1920-1925 , • , • , • • • 14 Building the Organization • , • , • • • , • • 15 Problellll3 and Improvements in l'roduotion , , • 17 Continued EXpansion . . , , . • • . , , , , , 29 Inoorpora tion 01' the Company • • • • • • • 3t~ III, YEARS OF EJU>ANSION, 1925-1929 , , , • • • • • • 37 Timber Acquisitions .....••• , , • , • 37 Expansion of Manufacturing Facilities , , , , 45 Financing of Expansion , • • . • • • • , • • • 49 Accident Prevention .•.•••••••••• 52 Marketing of Products ...••• , ••.• 54 IV, YEARS OF STRUGGLE, 1930-1939 • • • • • • • • • • 56 The Depression and Government Action ••• • • Other Bradley-Woodard Ventures • • • • • • • • ii Expansion during the 19301 s • • •. • • • , • • 69 Unionization 01' tbe Woodard Company . • • • • 71 Control of the Company and Problems of Finance • . . . . . . . • . • • • •• • • 79 v. RED TAPE AND READJUSTMENT, 1940-1947, , • • • • 85 Transfer of Sawmilling Operations to Latham and the End of Railroad Logging • • • • • • 86 The Company in Wartime • •. • • • • • • • • • • 90 Labor Relations • • .• • • • • • • • • • • • 101 .Postwar Readjustment • • • • • • • • • • • • 105 VI, THE END OF AU ENTERPRISE, 1948-1956 • • • • • • 110 Expansion . • . . . . • . . .• . • • . • • • • 111 Finance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • 116 Leber Rela tiona . , . . • . . • • • • • • • 117 Marketing . . . . . . . . . . . • • • • • 119 Organizational Structure. , ••••••• • • Philanthropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . • • fJ AGi~t~bB~~-,,, ... , , .•• • • 129 VII-, THEW. A, WOODARD LUMBER OOMPANY IN RE.'rROSPEOT • 13.3 BIBLIOGRAPHY, •, , • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 140 APPENDICES , , • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 144 OHAP~ER I 11HUSTLINO FOR A GRUBS'l'AKE, 11 1900-1920 Tbe coming of the twenti~th century witnessed the con- tinuation of the movement of settlers to the western states of this nation. the movement having gained its greatest im- petus 1n the discovery of gold in California in 1849• The discovery of gold in the Bohemia Mountain District of the Cascade Mountains near Cottage Grove, Oregon, in 1858 had also attracted settlers. Not all of those that came were attracted by the prospect of finding gold. Many came to work in and develop industries and business concerns that were !al' less glamorous, but yet offered a promising future as the economy of Ol'egon developed. In 1900 the mining interests still dominated the economy of the southern end of tile Willamette Valley. The caption of the Bohemia Nugget, an early Cottage Grove newepaper dating back to 1899, expressed the mining influence. The paper was, 11Devoted to the Mining, Lumbering and Farming Interests of this Ool!lDlunity, to Good Govez,nment, and Hustling for a GNb- stake." The Early Background of Walter A. Woodard Eal'ly in 1900, Ambrose L. Woodard, his wife and eight children migrated to Oregon from Wheaton, Illinois.1 Tbe family sottled op a section of land seven miles south of Cottage Grove. The mountains surrounding Cottage Grove con- tained not only valuable minerals such as gold and quick- silver, but also the greatest stand of Douglas fir in the world. A newspaper ad by a Cottage •Grove roal estate agency described the community as, the second city in Lene County, Oregon ••• a population of about 1,200. Tho center of the tour points of the compass when it comes to ingress and egreas. Bohemia . with its vast mining resources only thiI>ty•fivo miles southeast, with a good wagon road leading from the South- ern Pecitio Raill'oad depot right ••• in town. Prospec- tive railroad to the mines. The Coast Forlc of the Will- amette River, on which is situated the Black Butte quiok- ailveI' mines, sixteen miles south, flows through the center ot the city furnishing abundant water facilities. It is only a mile end a half to its confluence with tho Row river, the outlet ot the great timber ranges to the south east. Weotword toward the coast range is an inex- haustible supply of timber, intol'spaoed with numerous rich farming lands well improved and cultivated. Uorth or south •.• on the Southern Pacific Rail- road you can reach either Portland or San Francisco and be in touch with the whole wo»ld in shol't notice.2 F'or the most part the timber in the aree ·had been passed up by lumbermen in favor of the more accessible sources on the coast end along the Columbia river. Yet, before the quarter mark of the new century was reached, the lumber in- dustr,y was to overshadow all other forms of livelihood in the area. 1'l'bio account of the early history of Welter A. Woodard' 13 activities is based primarily on interviews with Mr. Woodard, 2Bohem1a Nugget, August 23, 1901, Walter A. Woodard, the eleven-yeav•old son of Ambrose Woodard# was to become e central figure in the development of the lumber industry in the southern end of the Willamette Valley, Hie introduction to the lumber business was at the loweot level. During their first two years in Cottage Grove Walter Woodard and his two older b;,;,othera t-1orked with their father in chopping and sawing cords of wood tlM t were hauled to the rail.read tracks end sold to the Nil.road company to be used as fuel in their locomotives, Tho Woodards received from ~-2.25 to ~·2,50 per cord. Another large company proved to be tbe market for the Woodardsi lumber proiiucts for the next two yeara, During 1902 and 1903 they cut and sold poles up to twenty-seven feet in length to the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company. As the sales to this company declined they once again turned to the Southern Pacific wl1icb was at this time buying pilings at three and a half cents a foot. The pilings were out in ·the forest and run down the Coast Fork Piv-ev to the 1•a111•oad tracks where they were loaded on the cars. By the summer of 1906 the eldev Woodard had aaved enough money to enabl.e him to enter the aawmill business, In August of that year he became a partner of the n0wly tormed Ooaat Fork Timber Oompany. The other partners were M. H, Anderson, G. L. Carlile and T. n.,Galland. The mill was constructed one mile south of Cottage Grove. The location waa considered "one of the finest natural mill sites in tho Willamette 4 valley, as tho logs /jouli} be floated down the Coast Fork river.t and right into the compeny pond. 111 Getting the logs to the 30,000 boal'd foot capacity mill, tih1oh mrn powered ·r by a one•ht1nd.I'ed horsepower steam engine, was at times no simple·task. When the river was low flood dams kno1m as 11 flush" oz, "spleah11 dams were erected. 2 The dams would be oonatructod at several points along the river, The dams would be released one at a time with the 111'lush" or "splash" of the water carrying the logs to the next dam. Thia process would be repeated until the logs reached the oompi:my pond, The sawmill, whioh employed fifteen to twenty men, pro- duced rough lumber, moatly ties and stringers for the rail- roads. The stringers used by Southern Pacific in their bridges were 8xl7 inches and 30 feet long. Young Woodard worked at various jobs in the mill snd eventually became foreman. '.rhia mill t-ms one of the largest in the area and was the closest to Cottage Grove. The decline in 11.unber production in the Great Lako states in the latter part of the nineteenth century bad caused production to increase greatly in the Northwest. 01'ogon advanced in lumber production i'rom twenty- third place amor.g the states in 1899, to ninth in 1909, fifth " loottage Grove Leader, Aug~at ll, 1906. aFor more detailed description of this method se.e A, R. Reynolds, The Daniel Shaw Lumber Company (New York: The I~ew Yor!;; UnivEir.sity .Preas, 1957}, PP• 76-77; Uews item in Eugene Register~Guard, January 4, 1942. in 1914-, and tlnrd by l.919.1 This 1nel'eaae in,produotion was i-et'leoted by the growing number of aawlllilla in tbe Cottage Grove al'ea. The local papers in 1906 cal'ried news ·every week of mills being constructed or·plans_baing made:tor additional lllills. Tb!il following al'tiolo~ which appeared the flame day as the announcement of tha oonstruotion of the Ooaat Fo~k ~imbol' Coropaey mill, 1l.lustrates the nunibar and the siie of mills opel'a ting 1n tho area. '.!;he following is .a list of sawmills within. a few miles of Oottage Grove ,-ihose supplies a~o pi>inoipnlly bought in the Grove,. and whose pay rolls ai>e pa id through the bank at tbie point .2 J:l'ame Da11:y Capao:Lty Brown µumber Company 4,;.,000 Chambers Lumber Company, Dorena .30.,000 '.eoylol' & Sona 1,;,000 AZ':t'O Go:tido tmnbei- Company 10,000 Wildwood Lumber Oompany 2$;,000- Star Lumber Compa11y ao,ooo Mc Kibben Eros. l!:>t000 Owens & Sons 1$,000 Wm. McCoy, Lorane 2,000 Addison Bros & Ross $,000 D. w• .a;ofer 10,000 J.B. Rouse 2$,000 Fran~ 10;000 Go F. Miller $,000 w. w. Shol'tl'idge 1,;.000 Wm. Skidmore ,,ooo Ste~ai>t & Deloney 5,000 Anlauf Bros. 10,000 J~ li• Chambers, Alea 40,000 I,. Pi Mc Coy • 3.,000 Wm. Chapman 5,000 lRobel't Carlton Olark, !Iiatort oi' the W11lamette Valle:z;, Ol'egon (Chicago: s. J. Olarke i>ubl.1sh1ng Oompany, 1927), Vol. I. P• 7.33• 2cottage Gvove Lead.er, A~gust ll, 1906, 6 In 1910, Ambroo$ WQodat'd and bis partners sold tbeiv sawmill to J. a. Obambers. Oha1nbers had been active in the lll!llber business in th-j area since 19031 ttl1en he bad con- atructad. his mill at Dol.'enrl'. He was to become ,one of the prolllinent figures in the industry .and a major eompetitox- of Woodard's for mot'e than two decades. 9:he saWlllill burned the follow1rig year and ,Chambers h1recl Waltel' Woodard to .fioh, 1914,,. ho went to i.1ork fol' the MoOl.oud River 1Un1ted States Department of Labor, JobDesqriptiona for the Lumber and Lumber Products In tries (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1939 • p, 313. 7 Lumber Company st MoOloud, California. This northern Cali~ fornia sawmill was at that timo the lal"gest in the state. His experience hel'e as head millwright was qu:l.te valuable in that the mill was more oomplo:x than the mills in which he had previously worked. The sawmill was a double band mill with a daily production of 340,000 feet in two shifts A single band mill is the oonvent:l.onsl unit, but oper• a to.vs with a larger aupply of tirnbev or logs may Mquire increased manufacturing oapecity and achieve it by an elaboration or multiplication of the basic unit, the band mill. which ia called tbe head saw. Gapacity may be increased .•• by the installation of o resaw-•a type of eecondary band saw which takes thick boards from the head saw, and resews them into thinner onos.l Woodard le1't McOloud in the winter or that yoar and re• turned to Cottage Grove where he once again went to work to%' Cllambers. on June 22. 191.5, af'tor inatalling a reaaw in the Chambevs' mill and whilo operating the .new saw, Woodard's left hand go~ caught in tho blade. The accident resulte.d in the loss of all of the fingers on his left hand. Such an accident was not at all unusual in sawmills. 'i'he industry had always been, and remains today, noto:riously hazardous. 'lhe injury to his hand required several months of 1mio- t1v1 ty, but as soon as the recovery was complete Woodard re- sumed hio 11 .ixpe,x,ienoe gathering 11 trips. His travels toolt him to various sawmills along the Oolumbia rive.ti and tbroughout the 1-Jillamette Valley in Oregon. 1stanley :Ii'. liO.t'n, '?bis Ji•sscinating Lumber Business ( New York: The Bobbs-Merl.'ill Company, 19/51}, P• l.39• 8 The spring of 1917 once again found Woodard in northern Califol'nia. He was originally hired by the Weed Lumber Com- pany ae a millwright, but wae soon transferred to the job of supervising the erection of the fraioo for a new sawmill, Tb1s plant wae a huge operation designed to produce over half-a-million feet of lumber a day. Thie capacity was reached by installing four bend mills. From Weed, Woodard traveled to San Francisco where due to the war, jobs in the shipyards wore plentiful. Woodard worked for several weeks at the Shawbatcher l'1pe Works. He left San Francisco when he beard of an opportunity farther south that held the prospect of higher earnings, In the oil fields neaz, Oalingo, California, ho was able to purchase used wirie cable ranging :from one-half inch to one inch in diameter. He bought the cablo in Calingo at $~0 a ton and shipped it to San Francisco where he sold it to his former employer for ~250 a ton. When no further sales were possible at this source he used his profits to purchase ad- ditional cable and shipped it to Cottage Grove. The war had created a paradox in that lumber demand had increased enor- mously and yet the equipment necessary for the production of lumber became al!T.loot impossible to obtain. This was t:rue of the t-iire cables used on the steam donkeys in the logging op- erations. With these cables secured to huge timbers, the small steam engines would wind the cabl.oa up on a dl'um and the timbers would bo dragged thl'ough the woods to the 9 desired location. Such heavy duties requil'ed frequent re- placement of the scares cables. Woodard therefore knew that the wire cable would be in dema~d in the Cottage Grove area, The fil'St shipment waa so enthusiastically r.eoeived that J. u. Chambers agreed to provide WoodQrd with sufficient cap• ital to enable bim to ship an ent.1re carload on the next tr!p. These shipmenta to Cottage Grove sold for $200 a ton and Woodard and Chambers shaved the pz,ofita equally. This ventul'oit early in 1918, gave the twenty-.. nine-ye1u•• old lumberman bis first opportunity to eave a large amount of money. ~ater in the year be ueed most of the money to pur- chase 160 acree of timber. He paid $1,600 for the quartel' section which was located six miles ·south of C~ttage Grove on the Coast Fork of the Willamette l"iver. In the summer of that year, while workin3 in a sawmill necr Klamath Falls, Woodard received a letter from J. B. Obambers asking him to return to Cottage Grove to supel"Vise the reoorwtruotion of the Chambers lllill that hlid burned to the gt-ound in tha summer of 1917• Woodard replied that he would not return for less than i200 a month. He mailed bis reply on July l. On July 3 he received the ahorteat telegram of his long 'business careel'••"Oome" signed by Ji H, Chambers, The 7$,000 i'oot capacity mill Woodard was to· build ,~as to be modern in every regard. lie pushed his thirty-man con- stl'Uction crew, and the mill was ready for operation on Armistice Day. Woodard worked as forer.ian in tbe new sawmill 10 until he hod another accident, • The accident, which reaulted 1n a badly m:•enched anl!:lo, caused Woodard -to misa four months worlt. The injury occurred when Woodard1 a right leg became entangled in a belt on one of the machines in the sawmill, In July of 1919, when his ankle had recovered, Woodard contracted to build a mill for M. v. Phillips. The terms or the contract called for the payment to Woodard of i65o fo1'._.PI'ovidi11g a crew and for supervising the construction of the mill, When the construction was nearly completed, Phillip~ asked Woodard to do some additional work not pro- vided for in tho earlier contract. Finding that Woodard expected additional payment for these tasks, Phillips de- cided to end the contract on a unilatoral basis, On the mo%'n1ng of August 21, Woodard and his crew ar%'ived at the mill only to find that Phillipa had hired his own crew to complete the job, Seeing this, Woodard took things into his own hands and turned off the steam tbDt operated the machinery. In the altercation that followed, Phillips struck Woodard with n log hook, severely injuring his left arm, A free-for-all betweon the two crows was narro~lly overted.1 Phillips was arrested for assault and fined $25 in the Eugene Justice Court. Woodard sued for money due for oper- ation of the sawmill and for non-performance of the 1oottage Grove Sentinel, August 22, 1919, 11 contract,1 Phillips oottled out of court by paying Woodard ~650 and giving h1m a fivo-paaoengor 1917 Buick, ~he Formation of the ComPany Early in September of that year Harry Bradley, the l'ortland agent for N. B. Bradley & Sons approached Woodard concerning the p'Ul'chaae of hie quarter section of timber. A price of 02,500 was agreed upon by the parties, This trans- action was of great significance since Bradley oleo asked Woodard if he would be interested in operating a sawmill in the area in association w1 th the Bradley firm. N, B, BradLey & Sons was a partnorship with its head office in Bay City, Michigan. The. partnership had been fOl'med follot~ing the Civil War. The company held extensive timber holdings in the Lairo States, in Louisiana and in Oregon and Washington. The holdings 1n tho western states were concentrated along the Columbia river where the company engaged in selling logs in the open marltet. l'he company op- erated eawinille 1n Michigan and Louisiana and ;1aa attempting to enter that business in Oregon. A favorable reply to Bradley• s inquiry led the two men to investigate the possibility farther,. They inspected the sawmill and logging operations owned by Woodard's father. The purpose of the inspection trip was to determine the 1oottage Grove Sentinel, August 29p 1919, 12 atuount of money that would be necessary to purchase and op- erate that m1ll'or one of comparable size. Bradley returned to Portland after telling Woodard that be would notify him as soon as something definite was heard from Michigan. on February 16, 1920, Woodard received word asking him to come to Bradley1 s office in ?ortland. There for the first time he met Fred W. Bradley, president of N. B. Brodley & Sons and cousin of Harry Brsdley. He bod traveled to tho Wost Coast to personally handle the consummation of the agreement. The agreement provided that $15,000 would be paid for the sawmill, equipment-and timber owned by Ambrose L. Woodard. Of that ~15,000~ tP~ Bredleys would pay ~6,ooo and Woodard the re- maining $9,000. Woodard paid t4,000 in cash and the balance of ~\5,ooo was borl'owed from the Brad1ey firm at 7 per cent interest. The sawmill and equipment was in Woodard's name and the 3,000,000 feet or timber standing on two oections of land was held by N. B. Bradley·& Sona. Th~ agreement further stipulated the t 11/oodard would purohllse ·all of the stumpage necessary for the ope.t>ation of the mill 1'rom the Bradleys e.t t,io dollars per thousand feet. The coat of ~\l,3 per 1,000 feot for logging, manufacturing the lumber and transportation to the buyer would be added to the cost of the stumpage. The difference between this amount and the sales price would be divided equally between the two parties. Included in the agreement was a provision that Woodard could bol'row any .funds from the Bradley Company that he felt 1,3 would be neoeseary to equip ·the operation in such u way as to guarantee etflo1ent and low oost production. In return for the funds, Woodard was to sign 7 per cent non-negotiable notes. Aocord.1:ngly, Woodard was advanced $3,000 to finance operations for the first sixty days. Thus, an alliance was tttade between a company with lorge financial reserves and a man with a resei"'Ve of technical ability. This alliance was to lead to the development of an enterprise that would dwarf this small beginning, but the path between the two points was obstructed from t;ime to time by seemingly insurmountable difficulties. OHAPTER II "ONLY THE BEGINNING," 1920-1925 A 1920 foreoaster of Oregon's future wrote of the state: The timber resources are the greatest on the continent. Weate.t'n and Southern O?'egon are the leading forest sec- tions of the state. There is over 600,000,000,000 feet of standing timber in Lane county alone--a quantity that cannot be comprehended. The lumbering industry is now the most prosperoue in the state,· and only the be- ginning has been made,l The a111all sawmill and logging operations of the Walter A. Woodard Company too, were only beginning. Seemingly, the enterprise could hardly have been launched at a better time. Postwar prosperity kept prices high and orders constant. The war had ruined for the time being the Oerman export trade and seriously injured the British •• , American exports soared to dizzy heights. They totaled slightly less than $8,000,000,000 for 1919 and considerably more than that for 1920--over three times their 1913 level,2 The domestic market was stimulated by consumer spending for commodities tbat had been difficult to obtain during the war. The Cottage Grove Sentinel reported on February 13, 1920, that, although mills in western Washington and Oregon had taken orders for 95,000,000 board feet the previous week, an 1John o. Almacll:, 11History of the Oregon Normal Schools, 11 The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, XXI (March- December, 1920), 167. 2oaoar Tbeodol'e Barck, Jr., and t,elson Manford Blake, Since 1900 (New Yorkz The Macmillan Company, 1952), p. 270. equal amount bad been turned down because of the inability of mills to meet the demand. Building the Organization As a result of Woodard's years of experience in sawmills not only bad be gained a thorough knowledge of sawmill ma- chinery and operations. but also a realization of the impor- tance of top quality workers. Having worked with and for several hundred different men during his career be had a per- sonal knowledge of many of their abilities. Now that be was managing his own lumbar company he set about to hire $ome of the more highly skilled workers in the area. In order to attract these men to a new and possibly unstable operation he had to offer better wages than they were presently receiving. M. J. (Jack) Cherry t~as at that time employed by the Western Lumber and Export Gompany in Gottage Grove. Woodard bad worked w1 th him at that company shortly before entering hio agreement with the Bradleys, Oberry had extensive exper- ience in the logging end of the lumber business. He bad held • the job of logging boas with a number of large companies in Oregon and California. Woodard knew from experience that Cherry could handle not only the technical operations of logging, but also a crew of "timber beasts" as Hell as any man 1n the business, Oberry accepted a $250 a month salary to become the Walter A. Woodard Company's logging boss. While in the employ of J. II. Chambers, Woodard had 16 worked td th four "hard-working Irishmen11 --the Dugan brothers, whom he considered unequaled in their respective tasko. He was quick to offer them employment with the new company, which all four accepted. The name Dugan was to appear on every payroll of the company from that time until the company was sold. Art Dugan, the sawyer for the Woodard Company for thirty-six years is still employed in the same job under the new ownership of the company, Of the three other brothers, Lee \-1as next highest in length of employment with over twenty years. John and Harold Dugan both served in supervisory po- sitions for a number of years. Another important man in the early operation of the Woodard Company was John Toms, eth. Tomseth, whom Woodard first met at Weed, California, where he was a supervisor for the Weed Lumber Company, was not hired until 192.3, when the company's remanufaoturing plant at Latham was completed. Prial' to his employment with the Weed Lumber Company he h!ld been the superintendent of the Springfield plant of the Booth- Kelly Lumber Gompany. 1 After leaving Weed be had attempted to settle down on a l'anch near Goshen, Oregon, but found that he was unable to rechennel his interests in that direction. It took little persuasion to get him to return to his earlier calling. With experienced and capable employees, a good market, 1H. J, Oox, Random Lengths (Eugene: by the author, 1949), P· 134, 17 a lt:U.'ge financial reserve with t-1hicb to expand end his own technical ability, Walter A, Woodard bad reason to be opti- mistic as his small company embarked on its venture into the new decade of the 1920 1 s. Problems and Improvements in Production Every lumber company in tbe county was operating at near capacity. Woodard' a sawmill, t-ihioh was located ten miles out of Cottage Grove on the Ooaat Fork, was equipped with two small circular head saws, an edger end a hand trimmer. The mill out rough lumber which WQa mostly ties for the railroads. The sm!lll sawmill, with a crew of ten men, produced 25,000 to 30,000 feet of tios peI' eight-hour day. Jack Oberry headed a logging crew of twelve men that logged timbers near the mill. After the timbers had been felled and the bucking crew had sawed the timbel's into the desired lengths, the logs would then be secured with the wire rope from one of the two steam donkeys owned by the company and dragged sev- eral hundred yards to the company pond. Logs from the pond t1ould be hauled up a slide by securing a cable on the log and winding the cable up on a ateam powered drum. The circular head saw would cut the log into large planks of lumber. The rough lumber then would be moved along dead rollers by hand to the edger and hand trimmer for final sizing. After the ties were out they would be dumped into the river and driven down atre8m to Latham where the loading docks were located 18 next to the Southern Pacific tI'aoks. 'l'he ties would be ele- vated out of the river on a conveyor and stacked on the dock, ready for shipment. Most of the. ties were sold to the Southern Paoitic for track being built in northern California. A smaller quantity was sold to the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern, a small rail- road that operated in the area. In late April of that year many of tho larger operators in the area began to be plagued by o shortage of freight cars for their lumber shipments, One mill had over 2,000,000 feet of lumber a tacked on its docks ready for shipment but 'i-l!JS un- able to transport it to its buyers. That amount I'epresented only a small portion of the total amount of lumber ready for shipment in tho area. 1 ~he car shortage seemed to signal the coming of far greater problems for the lumber industry. Tho depression that hit the entire country in the winter of 1920 was already affecting the lumber industry. 2 In July lmnbel' prices dropped one-third with the exception of railroad materials. The _prices on railroad materials declined, but not as rapidly as did the other lumber products, By early July the freight oar shortage had caused the larger operators in the area to close 1 Cottage Grove Sentinel, April 30, 1920. 2iiarold Underwood Faulkner, American Economic History (Net-i York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1939), P• 611. 19 down. The J. n. Chamber-a mill and the Western Lumber and Export Company did not reopen for several weeks after they shut doi-m for the Fourth of July holiday. The Woodard mill remained in operation despite declining prices. The decline was hastened by the ever increasing number of mills which turned to the production of railroad materials as other mar- kets disappeared, Markets and prices continued to decline through the summer. A severe blow was dealt in August ,ihen the railroads in the Northwest increased freight rates. This ended the freight car shortage due to the fact that orders fell off by over 50 per cent. 1 The larger mills in the Cottage Grove area continued to operate with reduced worlt crews and amaller operators such as Woodard worked on a day to day basis. While earlier in the year Woodard had received as high as ~32 a thoueand board feet for ties, the price by October had declined to t16. In mid-October the condition of the market forced many mills to cease operations--1ncluding the ,- Walter A. Woodard Company, Herbert J. Cox, t1ho spent over forty active years in the lumber 1ndustl'y in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, referred to the depression of 1921 as having been motivated by tbe public in 1920 entering upon a 11 buyers stl'ike 0 as the result of incomes being deflated before living costs were reduced. The Lumber Industry, like all basic material industries had built up huge 1cottage G·rove Sentinel, September 17 • J.920, 20 inventories at high cost of production, and having been intoxicated with War and post-War prosperity, they were reluctant to sober up in time to meet conditions histor- ically inevitable, and which floored them for enormous losses in depreciated inventory valuee,l The combination of high freight rates, a decline in the foreign market due to unsettled financial conditions in Europe, l!lnd the public belief that p1•ioes were due to decline caused the greatest slump in the lumber marltet in the history of the industry up to that time. Although his lumber mill was shut down, Woodard was in a favol'able position when compared to most of his competitors. Woodard had not spent large sums of money for expansion during the higb cost period in early 1920, and during the depression he had capital available for expan- sion. Certain that the depression ~ould be short lived, he began making plans for improving the productive capacity and competitive position of the company. The efficiency and profitability of the company•s opera- tions had been handicapped by two factors. One was the prob~ lam of transporting the lumber from the mill to the shipping point at Latham. The use of the river had resulted in innum- er~ble difficulties. The most common problem was that the r_iver could be too high or too low to carry the lumbar, Trucks could be used instead; however, this greatly increased operatir.g coats. The second problem was the lack of proper machinery for producing finished lumber. The refinishing of 1oox, op, cit., pp. 161-62. 21 lumber would make it poso1blo for the products to oppeal to a larger market. As a solution to the first problem Woodard thought of using a flume. A flume 1s a narrow trough, ui th a constantly maintained downgrade, in whioh a stream of water carries the logs ( sometimes lumber) do~m to the :nill or to the log deck. A typical flume may have a trough that is either V-ahaped or aquare-bottomed. It will be supported on a rough frame foundation, which is elaborated into a trestle when it passes over a valley or hollow. The V-ahaped trough w:Lll be perhaps 16 inches high and 36 inches wide, de- pending on the size of timber handled; the square-bottomed type may be larger, Use of flumes presupposes ar. abundant supply of water, which is fed into the tl'ougb at its higbeat point and supplemented by feeder troughs along the route. Flume construction is carefully engineered, with a maXimum grade of about three percent {diminishing toward the bottom) and curves no erecter than eight per- cent. Crewe of runners armed with piokaroons or peave:,s are stationed on the walkWay along the flume to keep the logs moving, Tlle speed o:r the logs• downward journey may be t•egulated by the input of water, as well as the grade, but 1vill generally not be in excess of tbl'ec or four miles an hour.l Being one to investigate ever:, aspect of a venture be- fore entering it, Woodard spent sevel'al weeks traveling to various lumber companies that utilized flumes in their oper- ations, He visited sevel'al m1lla in western Oregon, includ- ing the Fischer Lumber Company at Maroola which had had great success Trli th 1 ts flume. \-Ioodal'd traveled as fal' sou th as Hadera, Cal1.:f'oI'n1a, to see a flume that had been evected in conditions similar to those that confronted the prospective flume of the Woodard Company. The flume used by the Madera 1Horn, oo. cit., PP• 134-35. 22 Sugar Pine Company carried rough lumber a d1stanoe of fifty- six miles. Aftel' having inspected thea.e varioue flumes Woodard returned to Cottage Grove to lay ·the plans :for the construction of a flume to carry the rough lumber from bis sawmill to Latham1 eight miles away. The eummer of J.921 was spent 1n ciearing away obataoJ.Of/!• It. was necessary to find as direct a route es possible With the proper grade. Once the route had been selected there was the problem of securing rights-of-way. Tho flume wao to cross the l~d of sixteen different property o~ners. Woodard began to purchase rights-of-way, taking the lower priced ones first ·and eventually buying tho higher ones. ~he deeds 11101>e good tor a ten-yeal' period with the right of rene,ml every yesr for as tong as the flume was in use, On August 3, Wooderd filed a 11st of aixtaen z,ight-ot-way deeds wi.th the county clerk. That same day he appeared before the Lane County Court with a petition for the privilege of crossing county roads in six plaoea,1 The petition called for the pl'iV:l.loge of the use of the flume fol' a twenty year period.2 The following week representatives of the court investi- gated the proposal. The flume was to cross the county roads at heights of from four to seven feet. These heights were necessary to lll!lintain the proper downgrade. This required 1cottage Grove sentinel, August 5, 1921. 2ill9:,,,; August 12, :1921. 23 tbe building of bridges over tbe flume am a bond to guar- antee the safety of the roads and their restoration after the flume was abandoned. The approbation of the project by the court resulted in a contract being awarded to Sherman Goddard, a local con- tractor, for the oonatruotion of the flume. The contract stipulated that Goddard would supply his own crew, lumber would be provided without oost and he would receive $9 per thousand board .fee.t of lumber put in place. 1-loodard toolt the responsibility of erecting tho bridges that were to cross the county roads. The total cost of the project, including sur- veying, right~of-wlily deeds, construction an.d lumber was $40,ooo. The flume had a thirty-six inch v-abaped trough. The grado was one-half of one per cent and when completed it took two hours for lumber to mal~c, the trip. Goddard and his crew began work on the flume in early September-and the Walter Woodard Oompany1 s sawmill and logging operations r01.rnmod after. having been shut down !or eleven months. As the con- struction progressed the flume was kept filled with water so that the lumber needed for its oontinuenco could be floated down to the crew. The second problem was at the same time being eolved. Woodard hired a crew of forty-five men tihen the company re- sumed operation. Of these, twelve worked in the woods and ten in the sawmill., The remaining men were engaged in the 24 erection of a planing mill at Latham as well as the construc- tion of a bunkhouse and cookhouse near the sawmill, The planing mill was constructc;d adjacent to the loading docks. The building tms designed to handle the planing operation 1n the least amount of space and in the shortest timo, A planer _with four·cutting heads was installed, an ed6er to out proper widths, and a trimmer to make even lengths, A band resew was also installed. The sawmill operated to provide lumber for the construe- tion of the flume and the other projee~s that wero being un- dertalten. The lumber that was produced in excess of what was needed for this expansion program ims stacked for 1'uture 'use or sale. The improvement of the lumber market in the winter of 1921, resulted in the reopening of many of' the mills in the area, Western Lumbe:t' and Export Company reopened :l.n Movember after having been closed down since Moy of that year, Tho Booth-Kelly plant at nearby Sp.t'ingfield also resumed operation in Novembel', returning 175 men to tiork for the first time since January 15.1 The nei-rnpapers in the .t'egion so dependent on this one industry wore filled with nows of tho regenera- tion of the area•s economy. The planing mill and the flume wore completed in Feb- ruary of 1922, The sawmill was then shut down in order to 1Ibid., November 11, 1921, install improved machinery and to boost the horsepower of the existing equipment. The capacity of the mill was increased to the extent that when operations began in July the mill was capable of producing 75,000 board feet in an eight hour day. In preparation for the return to full time operation, the company added a store to its assets. The srtore consisted of an additional room in the company's small office, The merchandise handled included food, work clothes, household items and worker's supplies, Goods were sold on credit with the sales for each month being deducted from the monthly pay checks. The newly completed cookhouse and bunkhouse facilities were designed aa an integral part of Woodard's attempt to attract a better quality of workmen. Turnover at such camps could be favorably or adversely affected by the quality of food served. Large and well prepared meals were available to all employees for thirty cents a meal. The meals, pre- pared for many years by Mr. and Mrs. Harry Stump, were doubt- less an asset to the company. The bunlthouse provided sleeping quarters for all single men. It was novel in that it was equipped with hot shower faoili ties. Worltera were not allowed to use their own bedding because of the likelihood that they contained an ample supply of bedbugs and other types of insects. Mattresses, springs and blankets were provided by the company, Woodard was the first operator in the area to provide springs and mattresses, 26 wh1oh vesu;i.ted 1n a good number of jokes by other ope:ratora. The bunkhouse wae cleaned daily by a clean1~ man, The enactment ot these policies ill vespeot to the eating and sleeping aooolll!llod.ationa provided the employees with good food and comfortable ar.d clean sleeping quarters--esaentiala for top performance on the job, The growth ot: the company was reflected by the number of employees• names on the payroll for tlle- month of July, l~orty mon worked unde.t' Oberry in the woods plus a man named Jo~ Geer and his team of horseo, ?he mill 8lllployed twenty• '' e1gbt men while. the Latham operations, including flumo walk- ers, also .['equi.1:'ed .the aerv1ces of twllnty-o:i.ght ro.en. The wasea of tho nearly one hundred mon rangod from ~2 to-07 a day. Most of the -wage ea.l.'ners. wel'e mak111g' a'round. $4 a day. The three aalt1Iiied omplo~ees l:lated eal'ned as i'ollowa: Ober.l:'y, ~250;.~omaeth, $250; and v.· D,• White (a·raachiriist), e175. Eight houI'a was considered a day1s work and anything in exooas 0£ that was computed as a traction of an Udditional day. Thia made it poosible for wage earners to at times have earnings in excess of the salaried employees .. The mortality rate among smaller •mills during the depres• sion was reneoted by the appeal'anoe on the payroll ot names such as McKibben, Taylor and Shortttidge. The list in Ohapter I showing tho mills in opel'at1on 1n the area in 1906 included these names as Clill operators, A repetition of family names waa alwoyo oharactei•1stic of the Woodard payroll. The month 27 o:f July in 1922 revealed three Newtons, tt·10 Bergrens, two Abeenes, two Ewings, four ?owells, two Dugans (John and Lee had left during the depression and as yet had not returned), three Over tons, and two Woodards ( Oscar and Albert, both brothers of Walter l1. ) • 'l'he production of higher quality lulllber complicated the marketing of the company 1 s products. Sales to railroads were made directly with no middleman involved. The advent of the production of the higher grade Dlllterials shifted the emphasis away from sales to railroads, although they still represented 25 per cent of the company's market. The remaining sales were made to lumber retailers through wholesalers, ThiB mul- tiplied the number of transactions and required the creation of a position responsible for handling the sales of the com- pany. This duty, among other tasks, became the responsi- bility of John Woodard, an older brother of tho company's head. The company continued to improve ita methods of produc- tion. ln February, 1923, construction was started on a log- ging railroad above the sawmill. 'l'he railroad was extended two miles into the woods to facilitate the transportation of logs to a 7,000 foot gravity decline system. 'l'he small four wheel powered construction engine would brlr,g its two oars loaded with logs to the head of the decline wbere the cars would be secured by the cable of a steam donkey and lowered down the 7,000 feet of track that led to the log pond, When 28 the logs had been dumped in the pond, the steam donkey would rewind ito steel cable and bring the oars rumbling back up the incline. Operations through the spring and sullllller months were steady, keeping between 85 and 100 men employed eight hours a day, six days a week. Stoppages wore infrequent. The only days off were July 4 and 5 and Sundays. The employees only worked four hours on August 10 in order to attend a memorial service being held in Cottage Grove for President Warren G. Harding, In coordinating the operations of the sawmill, the log- ging operations and the remanufacturing plant, Woodard empha- sized the policy of allowing each foreman in charge a large degree of freedom. The only man that a foreman bad to answer to ,ms Woodard bimBel1'. He expected each man to eee that his department operated properly and under no circumstances was a foreman to concern himself with the functions of another de- partment. The fact that Woodard handled his supewisora in a firm and demanding manner was demonstrated by Cox1 a remarks con- cerning the 11 prime mover" of the Woodard Company. In breaking through the inevitable and innumerable ob- stacles, Walt developed a dynamic per~onal1ty; o1'times a display of warrior-like ferocity, resultin~ in an aftermath of good-natured nicknames such ae Klngfieh" and 11 Industry1 a Huey Long." Whenevez, Walt reprimanded his superintendent, one Johnnie Dugan, the latter would spend the balance of the day sulking and muttering to 29 himself 11Damn1 d 011 Oobl1nt 111 Continued Expanaton ':Che Bl'adleya continued to purchase stands of timber in the area to assure a continued supply for the company. Early in 1924 three sections of the timber land located between the sawmill and Latham were purchased. Plana were !Illlde to con- struct a second sawmill in the center of this stand of timber, but a continued decline in lumber p:riceo caused Woodard to delay the construction. While prices had declined by some 2$ per cent from the previous year, labor costs bad remained at the same level,2 A reduction was made in tho work force in February and March with the remaining crew dispersed among various tasks, John Woodard and four other men began a survey of tho route for a railroad leading from the flume to the proposed site of the second mill. Other employees were engaged in the con- stl'Uction of additional loading docks at Latham, the electri- fication of the planing mill, and the construction of 15 three and four room cottages for employees and their tamiliea. Upon completion of the survey of the route for the pro- posed railroad, twelve men from the logging crew began clear- ing the rout in March, In April the entire logging crew 1oox, op. cit.• P• 180. 2cottage Grove Sentinel, March 20, 1924, 30 wol'kecl only two weeks, all of whioh was spent finishing the job of oleal'ing the path and gl'ading the route for the rail- way. In May, mill 11A11 was shut down. The sixty remaining men wol'e engaged in tho building of the new l'ailroad, con- structing a dam for the log pond, and other activities 1n preparation for the oonatruction of the now sawmill. The completion of the electrification of the planing mill in March resulted in the first mill so powered in the area ancl one of the few• in the entire a tate. 1 Eleotrici ty was purchased trom the Mountain States Power Company. Con- struction was also completed on the cottages in March. The rent was ~9 a month for three 1•ooms and $12 a month fol:' four rooms. The depressed lumber market continued to adversely af- fect the operations of the company. Tbe sawmill resumed op- era·t:Lon on July 16 with construction on mill 11B11 continuing but not being rushed. Mill 11 B11 wns constructed as a tempo- rary sawing operation and not as a permanent structure. The mill had a capacity ot 75,ooo to 80,000 :feet when completed, which Woodard contemplated would be sufficient to out the timber on the nearly 2,000 acres suvrounding the mill in ~wo or three years time. The new year of 1925 was greeted with a persistent de- terioration in lumber orders. The West Ooas t Lumberman' s Association reported new business 9 per cent below production 31 in J?ebruary. 1 Through informal gatherings of area lumberman and formal meetings of the Lane Oounty Lumbermen1 s Association, Woodard and his contemporaries reached "unofficial" agI'eements con- caz,ning pI'oduction, The program called for a 50 per cent re- duction in output which meant that 'With the completion of mill 11B, 11 Woodard was able to shut down mill 11A11 which was in effect a 50 per cent reduction of productive capacity. Mill "A" operated at 50 per cent capacity in February and diacon- tinued production March 7. Mill 11 B11 commenced operation on ,4arch 10. A marked improvement in the lumber market situation dur- ing the month of March resulted in the termination of the 11 unofficial" agreements. April 9 wi tneesed the inception of o night shift at the new sa\-imill. Combined production of both e!ght-hour shifts totaled 125,000 board feet. Produc- tion in May totaled 2,580,840 board feet as compared to 1,186,220 for the preceding month, Tho mill was comparatively small in that it could not handle logs in excess of twenty feet in length. It was situ- ated almost at the head of a canyon. The upper portion of the building wee in feet anchored to a concrete block set in the wall of the canyon. This lessened the vibration of the building considerably. The nearby log pond was something of 1rbid,, February 16, 1925, 32 a teat of engineering. A dam was constructed across a creek to form a pond. The trick was to erect a dam substantial enough to hold back the water and logs end yet keep the cost down since its usage would be limited to a two or twee year period. The lumber as it left the mill would drop down the canyon on an inclined rollway to a loading station. The incline was so steep that tho rollers were operated mechanically to pre- vent the lumber from moving too rapidly. At the lo~ding sta- tion the lumber would be placed on flatcars, with one leaving every forty-five minutes, The emall locomotive. named "Pet, 11 would haul the oars one at a time over the two mil.ea ot track connecting the flume and tho will. The track next to the flume was tilted ao as to facilitate the unloading of the flatcars. Loads would average 8 ,ooo board feet. Once the lun1ber was on 1 ts way to the remanufaoturing plant," "Pat" would be on hell' way baok for another load, 'l'he steepest grade she had to face on her uphill return trip was 5 per oent. 1 On the morning of July 18 there occurred a tire in the logging camp at mill "B•" A conflagration of tho timber 1n that area was prevented through the efforts of Woodard's logging and sawmill crews together with the crew from the nearby Weise Brothers mill, Somo 200 acres were burned over, 33 but no serious damage resulted since most of the area had already been logged. The threat of destruction by fire wa3 and is today para- mount in the lumbor industry. Much of Woodard's earlier building experience had been the result of saWlllill fires. Numerous fires destroyed the sawmills of lumber companies throughout the state. J. H. Chambers sew his mill burn to the ground on three different occasions during the forty-year history of the company. The last fire which occul'red in 1942 leveled a $500,000 plant. The prohibitive cost of com- plete coverage with tire insurance ii1ould often mean the fi- nancial demise of a company tihen a serious fire 'did occur, The faot tb!lt there was only one serious fire dul'ing the history of the Woodard Company might at least in part be e,:.- plained by some simple and rigidly enforced policies Woodard established the day the company first began operation. A watchman was employed for all hours during which the mill was not in operation. A second policy l'equired that the mill. be wetted down from the roof to the foundation on hot days and nights with low humidity. A third policy required the main- tenance of readily available equipment for the pul'pose of fighting fires. Smoking was not allowed in or near the mill or logging operations, and no provisions ,1ere made for special smoking areas--sn1oking was out. As tho years passed0 systems and methods became more elabol'ate, but these eal'ly practices proved to be successful in the early years. These policies 34 were derived in part from common sense, in part from the awareness of their economic importance and in part from a dread fear of ti.re possessed by Woodard, Since his you tb Woodard feared fire and this fear was ingrained in his rigid fire prevention policies. Incorporation of .the Company In August of J.925, Fred w. BradJ.ey, the sixty-eight year old president of N. B. Bradley & Sona, made his annual trip to the West Ooast to inspect N. B. Bradley & Son's holdings and to disouaa w1 th Woodard the aooomplishments and prospects of the Walter A. Woodard Company. This trip in the eulll!ller of 1925 was of special consequence in that it resulted in the culmination of plans for the incorporation of the lumber com- pany. WoodaI'd's indebtedness to the Michigan fizom had gl:'own to almost $400,000. It was determined by both parties that the extensive debt involved would be better band.led by incor- porating the company fol:' its full value and having both par- ties withdraw their propozotionate value in sharea of stook.1 An 1nventoI"y taken Januazoy 1, 1925, valued the oompany•s holdings as follows1 mill "A, 11 $56,501.9.3; mill 11B, 11 ~82,964.26; ·remanufactuzoing plant, $116,626.17; flume, $6.3,709.1.3; supplies (wire cable, oil and gasoline, etc,), 1Minute book, board of dizoeotozos, w. A. Woodard Com- pany. 35 $4,069.41; logging equipment, i31,056,oo; railroad $19,975,41; accounts receivable, $31,046,25; lumber on dock, $37,995,25; and other assets totaling $10,884,80 for a final total of $454,828.61, The liabilities of the company included accounts payable, the August payroll, a bank loan and an indebtedness to N, B. Bradley & Sons of $383,574.62 for a total of $408,258,61. The $46,570 difference between assets and liabilities was credi tad to Woodal'd, The timber holdings of N, B, Bradley & Sons were valued at $294,137,71.1 The company was incorporated for $1,000,000 with 5,000 shares of common stock and 5,000 shares of 6 per cent cumula- tive, non-participating preferred. Both issues had a par value of $100 per share, Fred w. Bradley took 4,535 shares of common and 2,064 shares of preferred. Woodard• s assets entitled him to 465 shares of common. The remaining shares of preferred stock became potential stock and were never issued by the corporation. On August 17, 1925, a meeting for the purpose of incor- poration was held.in Eugene at the office of Charles A, Hardy, Mr, Woodard's attorney. Oregon law required three incorpor- ators so Ml', Hardy acted as the third party. Hardy 11 pur- chased" one of Woodard's shares. The first boal'd of directors was made up of Fred w. Bradl.ey, president; Woodard, vice-president and treasurer; Roy V, Leonard ( the company' a booltkeeper) • secretary J and s. M. Calkins. Oalltins; another of Woodard1 a attol'neys, l'esigned in October and was replaced by Nathan Bradley, a nephew of the elder Bradley. The new corporation was na111ed the w. A. Woodard Lumber Company. Its official incorporation date was designated as· January l, 1925. ~he company which bad grown from a ~15,000 beginning ' four and one-half years earlier to a $724,300 corporation during the moat depressed years in the historr of the indus- try, looked expectantly into tl:w future. CHAPTER III YEARS OF EXFANSION, 1925-1929 Tbe incorporation of tbe w. A. Woodard Lumber Company stemmed from the need for a better means of financing tbo expansion of the company. The reliance of tho company upon tbe financial backing of tbo N. B. Bradley & Sons had created certain unfavorable· conditions. The added risk of liability was placed on the Michigan firm and upon Woodard. Woodard's personal liability and obligation for the nearly $400,000 which had been borrowed, proved to be a tremendous burden. With the incorporation of the company, new methods of financ- ing expansion were used. Expansion wss directed at three objectives: additional timber holdings to guarantee continued production; improved method of transporting logs from the woods; and, additions to sawmilling and remanufocturing facilities. Timber Acquisitions Tho timber acquisitions took two forms. Timber could bo purchased along with the land upon which it stood, or the b1;1yer could merely purchase the timber or "stumpage," as it I w~s called, on the land. The latter method applied to all purchases of timber from the federa1 government. A purchase such as this was advantageous to the company in that it pro- vided t:l.mbel' without adding the problem of land inme.t>ship. The government prevented stockpiling of such sources by re~ quiJ:'ing that the timber bo cut w"i.thin five years of the date of purchase. The u. s. Land Office at Roseburg handled the sale of the government timber in the area. Af'tel.' having 11 oruised11 the timber to be purchased, i'l'oodard would journey to Roseburg where, on the courthouse steps, he t-iould make an ol'al bid for the timber. There was seldom any competition for the timber until as late as Wol'ld War II. · When notice was l'eceived that a stand of timber was to be £motioned, an !.nspection of the timber would be made. Either Woodard, his brother John~ or a professional cruisel' would handle the task. Days would often be spent in the woods determining the quantity end quality of the stand as well as the cbaracteristica of the terrain wbioh would affect I the cost of logging the timber. I The minimum prices set by the government were generGlly one-half to twoatbirds of its actual value. The cvu1sea made it possible to select the very best buys. Millions of board feet of timber were sold at prices as low aa $2 per thousand. Typioal of such puroha~es made by the company was the timber on 320 acres of revested o. & o. land grant holdings. 1 The l The o. a: 0 •., lands were pa:t>t of a land grant given to the Oregon and CalifoI'nia Railroad Company in 1866. The • 39 one•hal.i' section of timber was advertised by the u. s. Land Office at a minimum price of $2 per thousand. The company did not have sufficient :funds to make the purchase, so at a meeting of th~ board of directors, with Walter Woodard, Roy Leona1>d and Charles Hardy present, it was decided to borrow $28,500 from the First National Bank of Cottage Grove. The company was then able to proceed with the purchase. The acquisition of timber from private sources generally entailed the purchase of the land as well as tl:le stumpage. In some cases the land would be obtained through trading or right-of-way agreomente. Thia was quite often true of land needed for railroad extension. In May, 1927, the oompany traded 280 acres of out over land for 80 acres of timber lend ot-med by Joe Il.liller. Woodard stated that it was 11 for the best interest;a of tbe company to make the exohange"1 which cleared the path for the oompany•s logging railroad. More co!Tllllonly, the company added to its holdings thl>ougb direct purchase. Fred w. Bradley directed the purchase of many hundreds of acres from his Bay City office. Upon the receipt of a lettw or telegram from Bradley, a meeting would be held consisting generally of Woodard, ilardy and Leonard. lands became the property of the Southern Paoif1o Company in 1887 through the acquisition of the o. & c. railroad. The company violated the ·terllllil or the land grant tthioh re- sulted in the, .federal governmen·I; reclaiming the land in 1916. 1Hinute book o:l.' the Boal'd of Directors, W. A. Woodard Lumber Company. , i 40 The purpose of 51.loh meetin5s was to determine thG feasibility of the purohase 1n light of local conditions. The decision, whon reached, would be !llllde official by a vote of the majority of stookholdere present. The acquisition of large timber holdings multiplied the problems of management, In October, 1929, the large timber owners in Lane County became enraged over tbe new valuations_of the county tax assessor. The asseosor, Ben P.. Keeney, was accused of dis- criminating against large compsnies. 1 Valuations were in• creased two and one-half times over the 1924 assessments. Woodard had additional reasons for oonoern sinoa, along with the increased timber value, the assessment of the remanufac- turing plant at Latham was increased from ~20,000 to t6o,ooo. Woodard and thirteen other timber owners and sawmill op- erators filed complaints with the County Board of Equaliza- tion. Woodard stated that there had been no more than ~•200 to $300 spent on improvements in the remanufaoturing plant during the past year. He also, along with the othe~ timber owners# complained of the d.l>ast1o increase in timber valua- tion. Keeney, who had based his assessment of the remanufac- turing plant on an article in the Cottage Grove newspaper and t-.ho had never seen the plant, was urged by Woodard to malte a personal inspection of the property as well as the lcottage Grove Sentinel, October 8, 1925, oompany1s records regarding improvements. Koeney requested that tbe board not adjourn 1 ts anmtal tax. revie1~ session until the inspection could ba completed. Following the in- spection, Keeney returned to state that bis assessment was in error, The board reduced the valuation to $20,000. 1-ioodardl s appeal, however, concerning tlle timber vaJ.ua- tion was futile. The board !'uled that 11 a lack of full :!.nfor- runtion upon which to base actual valuation or timber pre- vented the board from determining whether tho figures were unjust in comparison ~Ji th valuations placed on city and farm ]. property," The defeated group of timber o.-me1•s, which included such giants as the Drew Timber Company, Weyerhaeuser and Booth- Kolly, decided to appeal the decision to the circuit court. Tho appeal was l1i thdra°l'm as soon as it was 1'elt that 1 t hod bad 1ts full psychological affect on Keeney, ~oodard always joined 1n the conferences leading to such. act~ons, However, on the advice of Charles Hardy he attempted to remain out or the. limelight so as not to become identified W1 th the "timber barons. 11 Hardy's advice was based on the premises that smaller companies had a better chance with government offi- cials than did the larger concerns. Tax z,ulings and government officials were not the only • problems facing the company, The depletion of tho timber 1Ibid,, October 12, 1925, aupp1y au,wound1ng the two mills was rapidly taking plaoe. Many hundreds of acres were purcba sad to provide the mill with logs, but the distance between the source of supply and the saWlllills continued to increase. In order to tap these timber sources as efficiently and as ooonomi<.H.1.lly as possil:>1!!1 the company 1aunohod a ra11road construction program. Railroad Gonstruotion The use of logging railroads had grot,m extensively since their introduction in California woods in the 18901 s, In the tan-year period from 1917 to 1927, logging railroad mileage had grown from 3,853 to 6il64 miles.1 In February, 1926, a crew of nine men began surveying the route for the new railroad. The fiX'st objective was the top of a ridge two miles above mill II A. 11 The selection of the route was of extreme importance since it was necessary to maintain as un1fom and low a grade es possible. When com- pleted, the selected route covered 7¼ milos with the s·teepeot grade 5 per cent end.the sharpest turn 20 degrees, As the au:l.'Vey pe.rty moved farther along its course, con• struction began on the earlier atages of the railroad., In .t-larch, 1926, a crew began the erection of t1-10 trestles. The longer treetlo bridged a distance of 800 feet between two hills• The shorter one extended for 200 ·reet, brl:nging the 1Ralph w. Andvews, This Was Logging$· (SeattJ.e; SuperioI' Fublisbing Company, 1954), P• 127, 4.3 tracks across a log slit and a county road. The fir poles were firmly supported by a sixty-pound steel foundation. The project kept a crew of twenty-five men busy for several days, working at heights up to forty feet. Large scale railroad construction required the expendi- ture of lal'ge sums for add! tional equipment. Gl'ading was facilitatod by the use of a newly acquired steam shovel. A small fleet of Ford dump trucks was also purchased to aid in the construction. The river gravel that provided the ballast for the track was hauled to the end of the line in center dump ballast cars. The most important single piece of equipment was tho sixty-five ton saddle tank locomotive purchased from the Amer- ican Locomotive Works in Fortland. The $25,000 locomotive was shipped disassembled and was accompanied by a factory trained specialist to direct its reassemblage. The construction of tho railroad under the supervision of Woodard' a brother-in-law, Leon I'l, Mo:r;,ton, progressed at va1•ying degrees of speed. The rapidity with which the rail- road was extended was influenced by factors such as the weather, the lumber market and the acquisition of rights-of- way, The process of applying for right-of-way privileges had to begin long before the railroad reached the land for tJhich the application was made. In January, 1926, the company pe- titioned the Commissioner of the General Land Office in the Department of the Interior for the privilege of constructing 44 the railroad eoross the 11 West half of Section 21, Township 27 • South Range 3, West Willamette Meridian. 111 Tho application included blueprints of the proposed route and the gUerantee that the company \>Jould. "pay the :tteaaonable maI'ket prioo112 for the timber growing on the sixty foot wide right•of-way. The company did not receive the approval until the sullll!lor of that year. As auoh delays occurred, that part of tho rail- road v1hioh had been completed was utilised to log intermed- iate points along the track. In November, 1929, after thl'ee years and nine months of baok-brealdng work and tho frustrations that accompany a task ot auoh comlexi ty, tbe ridge two miles above mill II A11 waa The new method of ·b:raanaporting logs to the sawmill had many advantages over earlier methods. The use of the railway lessened the danger associated with the exclusive use of steam donkeys. 'rhe steam donkeys were, of course, still. utilized extensively; howeve11. it was pQssible to slow down their operation since their task was l'eduoocl to dragging logs to the rail:t>oad oars. other advantages stemmed from the higher production clue to the ability of the new locomotive to pull six oars loaded with an average of 10,000 board teat of 1,1,1:1.n:ute book oi' the Board of Dir<)Ctot's, W. A• Woodard Company. 2Ib1d. 45 logs per oar. The oars, known as disconnected trucks, functioned in an interesting manner. As the name would imply, the trucka we~e not connected to each other. Buch set of trucks rested on foul' wheels w:t th the distance between the two trucks deter- mined by the length of the logs to be carried. A large boom was used to dt'op the logs firmly on the sharp point of spikes J.ocated on the outside edge of the trucks, With the two out- side legs secured, additional logs t,rould be added in the mid- , dle aDd on top. It was imp era tiv e tbs t the logs wez,e evenly balanced since an imbalance of the logs could cause the oars to lose traction and roll, even on the re1atively mild 20 degree curves of the Woodard track. Th:i.s tremendous improvement in tile transportation of logs had its effect on several aspects of the business. Larger loggin~ crews were hired as well as fill additional crew of 10 to 12 men for railrood maintenance. The strongest de- mands were felt in the aamnill and remanufaoturing plant where capacity had to be increased to make provisions for the new flood of logs and rough lumber. Expansion of Manuf'aoturing Facilities Mill 11 A11 which had resumed op,eration in September, 192~. was shut down in March of the following year when the con- struction o! tb.e raill'oad began. b11ll 11 1311 continued to op- erate throughout 1926, providing ties for the ralll'oad as 46 well es lumber to be marketed. By April, 1927, the 2,000 acres of timber lani owned by the co1llpany sux,rounding mill '1B" had bean completely logged off. When the last log was sewed, the temporary mill was dis- mantled. Mill "A," which had stood idle since the spring of the previous year~ received a complete revamping end wna ready to operate by August. The bu11d1ng itself was the first object to receive attention. The foundation of the mill \~ae rein:!.'ol'ced with concrete. A new .frame was erected alld tl1e roof rebuilt. '.!:he size of the plant was 1nor6aoed trom 130 x 32 to 210 x 40 feet. Muon of the new machinery that had been purchased for 111111 11B11 was trnnsfel'red t:o the reconstructed mill• The mevement of the boilel' from mill 11 B11 to the newly oonstruoted concrete boiler room at mill "A11 doubled the lloraopowel." of the mill. When tho :reconstruction was completed, logs tmre brought into the mill up a new stee1-lined log slip by means of a jack chain. The 1ogs would be pike-poled into position so as to be caught by the dogs on tho ohain and pulled up the slip. On the way up, the log would be hit by several streams of water with tremendous pressure to remove mud. \l?he removal of the mud from the logs was necessitated beoa?se of the ad- dition 01· e new solid tooth o:l.roula1• hoed sat-i. '.Che teeth of tho saw had been reduced in size sufficiently to reduce tbe amount of sawdUat resulting from the sawing of eaoh log, 47 saving an avel'age of $120 a day. Tho ·1oga were turned tor aatdng on a now log turner which l'Olled the huge logs over as though they wer~ toothpicks and allowed the sawing of logs up to 42 feet in length. The increased size of the mill still did not, hot-Jever, give it the appearance ot a mill capable of producing 125,ooo- board 1'eet per day. One reason 1 t appeared sIIISller than mills of co~~arable productive capacity was that tbare waro no docks aur1•ounding the mill. A report in the Cottage Grove Sentinel following an inspection tour by the Oha1aber of Commerce and the Lions CJ.ub colll!llented tho t another reason tbat the mill. appeared small wes that there was not one half inch of wasted space anywhere. The log& al.'ld rough lumber moved no more than the exact diDtance necessary and did not retrace any distance once covered. The mill was labeled "unquestionably the speediest mill of its size" in that section of the state.l The cowmente l!llilde by tho newepaper reflect.ad two pol- icies that Woodard pursued throughout the history of t1le com- pany. hl.acbinery was operated at near maximum apeeds and set up as close together as functionally possible. 11It only made sense that if a man could do so much work by having to move around1 he could do that much !UOI'e standing 1n one place. 112 Woodard was continually studying tho operation of the mill icottage Grove Sentinel, October, 1927 • . 21nterv1ew with Walter A. Woodard, May 20, 1960. 48 to determine its bottlenecks and other weaknesses. He would employ ideas gathered from trips to every mill in the area. If be heard of something new being used at another mill he would be the first outsider there to study ita operation. Woodax-d•s own inventive ability coupled with these bor- rowed ideas represented one of the company's greatest assets. In preparation for the increased capacity of the sawmill, the operations at Lathem required expansion. As part o~ thia program Woodard evolved one of his many mechanical innova- tions, an electrically operated lift in the planing depart- ment, Lumber from the sorting table of the remanufaoturing plant went to the planer by lumber carriers, Each load would be loaded onto the automatic lift and fod automatically into the planer. Woodard's device kept the level of the boards constant, facilitating the feeding of the boards into tho planer,1 Expansion of the capacity of the remanufacturing plant progreosed during the fell and winter months of 1926. Tho expansion program included the addition of several hundred feet of loading docks and an additional sorting table equipped with live rolls and conveyor chains to carry the planed lumber to the trimming table and loading docks. A 600 horsepower electrical control room was also built, in addition to the 1gottage Grove Sentinel, September 16, 1926. 49 two 200 horsepower control rooms already in operation. The plant used more electricity than the entire population of Cottage Grove. The largo cutting capacity end sustained operations com- bined to give the Woodard Lumber Company and the other larger operators in the county a distinct advantage over smaller producers. A survey made in 1927 by Herbert J. Cox, then secretary of the Willamette Valley·Lumberman1 s Association, revealed that the four largest mills in Lane County, all hav- ing a capacity of more than 100,000 board feet a day, produced 51 per cent of the county1 s lumber while their daily capacity was on1y 20 per cent of the total. The four mills referred to were the Booth-Kelly plants at Wendling and Springfield, the Western Lumber Company at Westfir, and the Woodard Lumber Company. Of the other 90 mills located in the county in 1927, eight bad a capacity of from 50,000 to 100,000 feet; twenty-one had a capacity of from 25,000 to 50,000 feet; forty-seven had under 25,000 foot capacity, and four were not in operstion. Total production for the mills during the survey year was 365,629,000 board feet. 1 Financing of Expansion This period of rapid expansion, that made the company 1Ibid., August 23, 1928 one of the largest lumber producers in the state, placed a heavy financial burden upon the young corporation. The dollars that were spent on timber, the railroad, and the oompany•e manufacturing facilities were, for the most part, obtained through loans. Earnings were not sutticient to finance such growth. Dividends wer~ paid to common stock• holders only once during this five-year period. Stockholders received a 6 por cant dividend in 1926. The last dividend paid to preferred stockholders was in November 1926. Profits during the other years were reinvested. The loane obtained by the comp11ny in the latte!' hali' of the decade of "The !lreat Illusion,"1 were for increasingly lsrger amounts. Earlier loans averaged from ~15,000 to $30,000 end were generally reoeived f6I' the puroh!l~e of tim- ber. such was the oase as mentioned above of the loan of f,28 ,500 from the First National Bank of Cottaee Gro'fe ob- tained April, 1926, for the purchase of the stumpage on 320 acres of o. & c. land. In September of that year 686 acres were purchased from A, J. Weaver and Associates for $76,820. Thia loan wae handled through the Nebraska State Bank, Fall.a City, Nebraska. The btmk hel~ a first mortgage on the prope.t>ty to secure the 6 pal' cent prommisoey notes of·· the company. The notes were due in three years. All of the 1Harold Underwood Faullrnor, Amevioan Economic History (New Yorks Harper & Brothers, 1949), PP• 609-642. loans for tbe purchase of timber followed a similar pattern with the exception being that when stumpage was purchased the notes were secured by company property. In June, 1927, the board of directors made one of the most critical decisions in the history of the company. A loan of $300,000 was negotiated with the First National Bank of Day City, Michigan. The bank acted as trustee for tho issuance of 300, $1.000 six per cent gold bonds dated June 1, 1927. The bonds mntured serially in six installDlenta of t5o,ooo on the first day of June in each of the years 1928 to 1933, inclusive. Interest was payable semi-annually on the first days of June and Oeoeruber each year. The provisions of the bond isaue established a sinking fund to which was added ~2.50 per thousand feet of lumber shipped each month. ~he bonds, which were sold at 97 per cent of their face value, provided a sufficient amount of money to pay off many of the company1 a outstanding obligations and provided an ade- quate reserve for expansion. In July 1929, the last major loan obtained during this period of e;x;panaion was negotiated for $30,000. That amount represented part of $!1,2,500, the price of 1760 acres of timber purchased from the Oregon Timber and Investment Com- pany, an Iowa corporation. Woodard paid ~12,500 cash as a down payment, plus a sales commission of $5,500. Promissory notes bearing an interest rate of 6 per cent per annum were signed for $30,500. The notes were to be paid in installments of $10,000 on or before the first day of August, 1930 through 1932, inclusive. The notes were secured by a first mortgage on the purchased property. The loans made duri.ng these years of growth combined to . represent a large annual obligation. The payments were met without great difficulty during the late 19201 s; however, econolllic conditions in the nation during the 19301 s placed the very 1.1.fe of' the corporation in jeopardy. Accident Prevention The hazards that are inherent in the lumber industry have-caused the death and disability of thousands of men. The Woodard Company maintained a very favorable accident rate during its years of operation. The accident in the summer of 1915 that had cost Woodard the fingers of his left hand caused him to emphasize safety in every aspect of the company's op- erations. By today's standards• the safety program was quite J.iorl.ted. There was no "safety engineer," or company liter- ature dealing with accidents. The program centered around providing the employees with the best equipment available with \~h1ch to work. F'oremen we1•e. responsible for seeing that the equipment was made available and properly used. Woodard was very severe in disciplining workers for carelessness. There was some question in the orl.nda of the workers as to which was worse--to have an accident or to have Woodard catch them being careless. 53 At times; monthe would pass without a serious injury while at other times there would be a rash of accidents. Such a day was June~, 1928, Bill Johnson, a flume walker for the company, sustained a badly broken left leg in a freak accident. Ho was !mocltod :from the flume by a board that jumped out of the watev, Being in an isolated are.a he was forced to crawl tor several hours before his calla for help we.tre heard. On the same day another employee, Rudolph Davie, re- ceived a badly mashed lag and narrowly escaped death when a log rolled on him, The accident occurred in the woods during the movement ot a steam donlcey to a new location. In still another part of the company1 s operation Claud Ruffo a driver of one of the Ford dump trucks being used in the railway oon- atruot1on narrowly escaped death when the truck be was d.l'iving went over a gl'ade and rolled over four or five times. He re- mained in the truck and was not ael'iously injured. Another truck bad gone over the eame grade the day before without seriously injuring tho driver, 1 Not all men were as fortunate. on August 28, 1928, an accident occurred in the logging opepationa that toolc. the life of Stanley Damewood, a thirty-four year old employee of the Woodard Company, A log being dragged through the woods by the oable from a steam donkey atruclt a dead hemlock whioh 1 ) oottage ovove Sentinel, June 7, 1928. 54 was two and a half feet in diameter. The tree was evidently held in place by the log and oable because as they were moved the tree fell on Damewood, striking him on the head. :rhe death of DameNood was the :f'irst euoh tragedy in the history of the company. The logging operations were closed down for the remainder of the day and the company did not operate the day o:f the funeral. All 01' the business c·oncerns in town closed during the hours of the funera1.l Marketing of Products An unfortunate characteristic of the lumber industry is the instability of market conditions. Drastic ch®ges occur from month to month and year to year. Sales of the company during the five-year period 1925 through 1929 ranged from a high of nearly $600,000 in 1929 down to e290,000 in 1927. Total salos for the period wel'e sometihat over $2,250,000. The market for Woodard products increased because of the addition of many new pl'oducts to the company1 a line during these yoars. The Pacific Coast edition of the 1926 Dir.ector:y of tho Lumber Industry (published in 1925) listed the com- pany1 s products simply as 11 .fir, 11 The same publication in 1929 listed the products as 11 Red Cedar, Douglas yellow and red fir, hemlock# white fir, finish, common, dimension, floor- ing, siding, timbers, pattern stock, shop, car material, 1Ib1d., August 30, 1928, R, G. cleat's, long t1mbe!'s, ties and Orossal'ma,01 The com- pany produced 13~,,582,000 board feet of lumbar during this five yaar period, Through the efforts of John Woodard, the company sales manager, these products, except those used in the company's own e,:pans1on program, were sold through wholasale:rs to re- tailers tlwoughout the nation. Shipping destinations were as td.despvead as Ohioago, Denver, st. Louis and San F'rancisco. A large number of the shipments went to retail yal:'ds in Cali• fornia. McDonald and Harrington, a large California retailer, placed orders from Sacramento, Antlers, Gerber and Sunnyvale. The Diamond Match Gompany and Southern Pacific were the two largest users of Woodard1 s products. '!ha company had grown during the 1 1920 a to· a place of relative importance in the industry. It entered the new decade of the 1930ta with a feeling of oonfidenoe. It bad survived the depression of 1921 and tho uncertainties of the 1 1920 s; it was not realized howevor, that these were mild winds compared to the storm that was to come. ½he Timberman, Direotor 0£ t.tie Lun1ber Induatr , Pacific Coast, 1930 {Portland: The 'l'imberman, 1929 , P• 92. OHAFTER IV YEARS OF STRUGGLE, l.930-19.39 'file new year of 19.30 was ushered into the Cottage Grove area by a snow storm. The thermometer dropped to 2$ degrees obove zero and the higher elevations received a twenty-inch blanket of snow. The snowfall, followed by a silver thaw, forced the satrniills and logging camps in the area to close down operations for two weeka.1 The adverse weather condi- tions' seemed to .foretell of tlle problems that would confront the lumber industry and the entire country during the decade of the 19301 a. The crash of the stock niarlcet on October 29, 1929, bad signaled the beginning of an economic decline that did not halt until the spl'ing of 193.3. Unemployment during that period l'oae from less than·4,000,000 to over 13,000,000.2 Those who were not tbl'own out of .worlt were forced to live on greatly reduced incomes as wages and salaries declined. Efforta, by :Preside~'t Herbart Hoover and his administra- t:l.on, to stay the aoonomio collapse lJere unsuooesaful. In 1cottage Grove.Sentinel, Janual'y 9, 1930,and January 16, 1930, 2Faulkner, op. cit., p, 6!,l. 57 the election of 1932 the American electorate brought into the office of president a man who offered them a "New Deal. 11 The program for recovery instituted by Franklin D. Roosevelt resulted in tho establishment of several hundred federal agencies, each of whioh attempted to stimulate the economy. Recovery began in the spring of 1933 and continued with several intel'ruptions until thei winter of 1937 \eat majority of the cases the rulings 'i-iere against the government. Woodard maintained the wage struc- ture specified in the code; however, he ignored the code p:t>ov1aions in setting p:t>ioes. ~he price fixing feature of the code came under such heavy attack and received so many legal setbacks that the prices set by the code were suspended in December, 1934.2 Any pretense of compliance 'i-li th the code ended when on May 27, 1935, the Supreme Oourt ruled that tho IT.I.R.A. was un- constitutional. There is little doubt that the "deteriora- tion of public support even more than the Supreme Court's decision foretold NM' s eventual collapae. n3 1oregonien (Portland), November l, 1934, P• 1. 2 Bryant, op. cit., P• 397. 3Barck and Blake, op. cit., PP• 520•21. Government action during tl:!ase years took othar forms in addition to the ill-fated N, I, R. . A,. Large lumber purchases were made for public works projects. The erection of 1,466 Civilian Conservation Corps camps required tile purobase of 2~0.000,000 board feet of lumber. Such orders stimulated the mal'ket for orief periods, but were unable to maintain a stable market or price level. Sales continued to follow the rollei- ooaster pattern that had been so typical of tbe industry•s history. Recovery came slowly as tbe economy began in 193$ to react favorably to the New Deal program. While conditions improved during the late l930's, ~here were still occasional alumpo in the market. Other 13.t'adley-Woodard Ventures The agreement made in Februal"y, 1920, between the Brad- leys and Woodard involved only one of tlbree separate ventures eventually undertaken by the two parties. The second one took the for1n of the Bradley-Woodard Lumber Company. Early in 1930, Fred w. Bradley announced his intention to organize another sawmill operation. He felt that the depression would be short lived and the low cost period would be an advanta- geous time to build. Woodo~d ask.ad Bradley to delay the pro- ject for at least a year in order to give him time to famil- ial'ize himself with operations on the Golumbia river. They would be logging a different type of timber, shipping their products by a different method and employing a leas stable 66 and more militant type of employee. Bradley, however, in- sisted that his holdings on the Columbia river had to bode- veloped. A site was, therefore, selected on the Oregon side of the Columbia river, seventy-eight miles below Portland. The mill site was in a large stand of hemlook 01-med by the Bradleys. The lumber community became known as Bradwood. Charles A• Hardy, Woodard's attorney, drew up the incor- poration papers, The company was capitalized for $1,000,000, all of l-Jhich was subscribed to by M. B. Bradley & Sons. The Bradleys exchanged l.4,000 acres of timber land for the stock. The board of directors was made up of Fred w. Brad- ley, president; Walter A. i-Ioodord, vice-president; Roy v. Leonard, secretary; Nathan Bradley and Charles Hardy, direc- tors. The agree1nent that existed between Woodard and the new corporation stipulated that he would supervise the construc- tion of the sawmill, plan the company 1s operations, and manage the company for an indefinite period. In return for hisser- vices and the use of his name, Woodard would receive 10 per •'•· cent of the company's net profits and 5 per cent of its sel- ling cost 1 f the company were sold. The new venture was launched at an unfol'tunate time. The tumbling lumber prices delayed the construotion'of the plant. What money was available was used to construct a railroad into the timber holdings. Woodard spent long days and sleepless nights working to • 67 keep the new company from collapsing. Thie served to multiply the already existent problems with the company at Cottage Grove. After worlting all day at Bradwood, he f1ould often travel 200 miles to Cottage Grove to handle tho other com- pany1 s affairs. Several trips each week, either by car or train, gave the resourceful lumberman hours in which to plan and to study the problems of both companies. In November, 1931, when operations ceased at the Woodard raill at Cottage Grove, the sixty-five ton American Locomotive was dismantled and shipped t,o Bradwood for use in the logging operations there, Logs were brought out of the 'l'Jooda by the railroad to a log chute where they were dulJlPed into the river. Woodard made a contract with the Crown-Willamette Faper Com- pany to supply pulp logs. Woodard agreed to put the loge, ratted and scaled, into the mver for $6.50 per thousand. It cost $2.56 per thousand for labor and an additional 94 cents for other overhead coats. The $3 per thousand profit from this transaction kept the company in operation during some of the darkest days of the depression. The Bradley firm, which had large Cotmllitmenta in other business ventures, was unable to supply any financial aid. At times, ' Woodard met the payroll out of his own pocket until payment was received from the sale of additional logs. In the spring of 1933, as the Bradley's financial posi• t1on improved along with the lumber market, oonstruotion be- gan on the sawmill. Cons truo•tion of the 125,000 foot capao:I. ty 68 mill was completed in September, 1933.1 The plant included a planing mill and dry kilns. Lumber was shipped by ocean going vessels, since the dock fronted on thirty feet of water.2 With the growth of ·the new oompany and the retuI'n to normal pl"oduotion o.f the other company, Woodard found it in- cz,easingly difficult to manage the distant ope:riations. In 19.36, with a cash se.ttlement of $10,000, his agreement with the Bradley-Woodard Lumber Company was oancellGd. During that same year, Woodard and h1a wife began to pttrchaae timberland, the ,nt1rket; price of which t,Jas still de- pressed. '·'They were able to purchase valuable stands of timber at unbelievably low prices. Several hundred acres were pur- chased at prices as low as $2 per acre. One section of land. the value of which tias eventually multiplied over 300 times, was oought for back taxes of C;2,880. The timberland was purchased for the purpose of selling stumpage to the Woodard Lumber Company. Since t'l1e company was financially unable to purchase additional land, the board of directors agreed to buy stumpage from the Woodarda at a fair market prioe.3 lFor a detailed description of the sawmill and mach1neey see the Timberman, August, 193.3, P• 7$, 2cottage Grove Sentinel, September 6, 1934• .3Minute book of the board of directors, w. A. Woodard Lumber Con1pany. 69 This ari:-eingem.ant led to some dissatisfaction among the Bradleys until they were aold a 50 per cent interest in the timber holdings. The syndicate, known as w. A. Hoodard et al., was divided into tenths. Each tenth 1•epresented an undivided interest in the holdings of the Siflldicete. This venture proved to be far moro successful than the sawmill on the c·olumbia river• The syndicate remained a highly proi'1 table ventuz,11 from its inception until the holdings were sold in 1956. Expansion during the 19301 s The expansion of the physical plant of the Woodal'd Com- pany was somewhat limited during these years for two reasons. First ot all, as a result of tµe depresoed conditions of tbe lumber market; the expansion of the company1 s facilities that had taken place between 1925 and 1930 proved to be in excess of what was actually needed. The other limiting factor was the weak financial condition of the company. One change that was ct great importance in later years in the company's operations was the erection of dry kilns, The fi.rat dl'y kiln was built in the fall of 193.3, . The struo- tUt>e, in ~Jhich lumber was dried by art1.i'ioial heat, measured .$2 .x 106 feet and had a capacity of 50,000 feet per day. Construction oosta were Kept at a minimum by having the saw• mill out the lumber for the construction of the kiln. Wood- ' ard used part of his own crew to build the kiln. The crew received from $3.40 to $4.00 per day. Since the Latham 70 operations were powered by electricity, it was necessary to install a boiler to furnish steam for the kiln.1 Woodard felt that the expenditure for the addition of s kiln was essential to the expansion of the company's sales. Retail lumber yards, particularly in the Midwest and East, pu,:,cbased an extensive amount or dz'ied lumber, and lioodard hoped to secure a share of that.market. By the fell of 1937, the Woodard Company was the only plant in the Willamette Valley with a dry kiln capacity of 100 per cent of its pro- ductive capacity. 2 It will be seen in a later chapter that this inveatm,ant proved to be the basis for large profits in subsequent operations. On September 5, 1937, "one of the latest and roost modern electrical power plants tor its size in the state of Oregon took over the load at the w. A. Woodard Lumbe1• Company plant11 3 at Latham. A 750 kilowatt Allis-Chalmers condensing turbine, three boilers and pumps and other machinery were housed in a steel and concrete structure, built ea fireproof as possible. The plant provided steam for the dry kilns as well as el.ectr1oal power for the plant. The fuel for the boilers was sawdust and shavings that had formerly been burned as waste. The fuel was transported to the boilers on an automatic 1cottage Grove Sentinel, October 26. 1933. 2rbid., September 6, 1937. 3~. 71 conveyor. A one-hundred foot long storage bin held a fuel supply sufficient for ten days to two weeks operations. Weter for the nei,r plant was talten from the Coast Fork at a rate of l,500 gallons per minute. The low rate of water consumption. was made possible by returning the hot water from the dry kilns for use in the boilers, The erection of the new power plant resulted in a large savings i'or the company. Electricity bad previously been purc1:>,aaed .from the Mountain States Pot1er Company• amounting to an average expenditure of i1.300 per month. The new plant tias operated et lees than $300 per month, The concentration of improved facilities at Latham seemed to give a hint of the eventual transfer of the sawmill to that site. The i>eporter trom the Oottege Grove Sentinel who cov- ered the story reported that "while Mr. Woodard was non-com- mittal on this point, every indication fiointegj to the fact that the power plant £wail to be enlarged, either doubled or tripled in size at a very early date, 111 Unionization of the Woodard Company Labor history in Cottage Grove was characterized by con- servatism. Most of the rnillo in tho Cottage Grove area re- lied upon the local population as their source of labor supply. Labor turnover was therefore somewhat stabilized, except for transfers between the competing mills~ The men were permanent residents of the area and generally bad known the operators 72 for many years. The only lal'Be operato,r in the area that d?>etf its labor supply fI'om another source was the Anderson and Middleton Lumber Company, which obtained woI'kers tb!'ough a hiving hall in PoFtlsnd. A lower quality of timber beasts and sawdust savages filtered through the company. Turnover was extremely higll because of a rebate agreement that existed between the company and the hiring hall. 1 Any radical ele• ment introduced to the area from this source ended when the company wen·t bankrupt early in the depression. The radical International Workers of the World, which centered its activities along the Oolumbia river and in Wash- ingtonJfound no support in the area. Even the conservative Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, whioh bas been labeled, '1Tbe World's Biggest Company Union112 did not thrive in Cottage Grove. The 4'L, which waa an outgrowth of labor strife in the lumber industry during World War I was comprised of both em- pJ.oyers and employees. Regional arbitration boards were es- tablished consisting of four employees and four employers. The last step in the arbitration process was a board of di- rectors made up of twenty-four members, equally divided bew tween employers and employees. Tie votes were decided by the president of the organization •. 3 l1nterview with Claude Abeene, July 8 • 1960. 2c1aude w. Nichols• Jr., 11 Brotherhood in the Woods" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of History, University of Oregon, 1959), pp. l-4• .'.,Ibid., P• 174• 73 This arbitration process made the organization unaccep• table f01• Woodard. One thing be rofused -to do throughout bis career was ·to give away his right of se1f·-doterminat1on•• He made the decisions, and it someone or a group, chose to diaa- groe, that was fino--ao long as they remembered who was boss, The fact that Woodard never alloued a seed of doubt to be oo\m concerning who was to make the decisions 111 the coniM pany is illustrated by an incident tbst took place on Thanks• giving Day in 1926. The orew at mill 11B11 showed up for wovk; however. $bout half of the men, including Woodard's brother Oscar, decided to declare the day a holiday. vn1en they ap• proaohed l-loodai•a. he simply stated, 11As long as I sign the cheeks, I'll run the eompany.11 Ho then gave Oscar and his associates an extended holiday--he tired them,1 Rebellion against Woodard's leadership was infrequent and when 1 t did al'1se it was quickly settled. . •most often in the manner described. above. While there was little doubt that be ran the company with as much authority as Huey Long ran Louisiana, Woodard provided his workers with benefits that were supel'ior to those offered by his contemporaries. The best equipment money could buy was supplied to the em- ployees. 2 This equipment made work easier, safer and more .. l:r:nterview with Walter A.,Woodsrd, May ll, 1960. 2oottago Grove Sentinel, October 6, l927J Timberman, August, 1933, P• 75; interview with Claude Abeene, July 8 1 l9o0. 74 productive. The .food served at the oookhouse was highly re- garded as were the bunkhouse facilities end cottages. Woodard combined with these policies one of paying the best wages in the a1•e11, 1 rfuile this was only a few cents more an hour, it amounted to a substantial differential in the 19201 s and 1 301 s. This policy continued throughout the company's bistory. When Woodard sold the company in 1956, tho employees took a wage out under the new employer. 2 Because of these policies and attitudes. Woodard looked with some distaste upon a drive to unionize his company in the summer of 1935. In the spring of that year a movement was started in the Portland area to organize locals in the sawmills. The organ- izing union was the A, F. of L. Carpenters Union, As locals increased, the union issued an ultimatum to the industry re- quiring, among other things, recognition of the Sawmill and ~imber Workers Union and a seventy-five cent an hour base wage.3 Strike votes were taken in ear1y May. 11 '.I'he stl':l.l!:e spread swiftly and steadily up and dolm the West Coast until by mid-May nearly 90 per cent of the Western fir production stopped. "4- loottage Grove Sentinel, July 26, 1933; Ibidt March 18, 1937; pay roll recol'da, w. A. Woodard Lumber Oompany; interview with Claude Abeene, July 8, 1960; interview with Walter A, Woodard, July 8, 1960. 2rnterv1ew with Joseph Olds, June 5, 1960. 3oZ'egon1an (Portland), April 16. 1935, P• l, 41acbols, op• cit., P• 166. 75 The strike, which was marked by several incidents of violence, did not effect many of the mills in Lano County. By midsumro.er the strike had subsided either because the locals 1riere recognized and a compromise t-1as reached or because the union gave up. The union8 were successful in a majority of the cases. On June 20, 1935, the 41L reported only 25 per cent, or 109, of the mills wore still closed down~1 by the strike, Just as it appeared that Cottage Grove was once again goinB to avoid any labor turmoil, the timber workers organ- ized, Four A, F', of L, ol'ganizers from Portland spent two days in the area and held a mass meeting where 150 signatures were secured, 2 The attitude of the work~rs seemed to be that they feared lower wages would result from the Supreme Oourt1 s ruling on the li,I,R.A.3 The union local, tihich was headed by Claude c. Ritter, a Woodard logging employee, presented a contract to three sawmill operators in July. The companies were the Bohemia Lur11ber Company, J. H. Obambeva, and w. A. Woodard, The con- tract called for a five-day week of forty hours, time and a half for overtime, :Cive holidays a yeai•, reoogni tion or sen- 1ori ty, recognition of collective bargaining under the 1cottage Grove Sentinel, June 20, 1935. 2Ibid., June 6, 1935, 3 Ibid., June 13, 1935, provisions of the newly enacted l'lagnor Act and wage :l.ncreasen providing fo1• a minimum of 50 cents and a maximum of $1,12½ per hour. Wages in tho area st that time ranged from 47½ cents to 77½ cents an hour. 1 Upon receipt of the terms of 'Gbe contract Woodel'd, J ,· H, Chambers, and w. A, Garoutte and La Sella Stewart, the owners of the Bohemia Lumber Co;npany, held a P1eeting to decide tiha t action to take, It was agreed tbnt if the workers walked out on strilte none of the parties would operate or ship lumber, They further agreed not to give in to the worlters I deamnds at any oost,2 In the interim, J, H, Chambers circul.61ted sign-up lists among his employees offering a five cent an hour raise to anyone who did not join the union or so out on str1ke,3 Such. efforts failed to hault tho stI"ilte. On August 2, the timber- men placed pickets around the three plants. The strilce wao relatively mild for its time. There was some attempt to prevent foremen at the Woodard plant from passing through the sate, but nothing serious developed. The situation might have been otherwise had tbei attempted to stop the determined owner of the mill, As he passed through the gate a revolve!' was clearly visible by his side on the seat of the oar. 1Ibid,, July 25, 1935, 2rnterview with Walter A. Woodard, May 11, 1960. 3rnterview with Claude Abeene,. July B, 1960, 77 During the :t':l.rat week of the. strike WoodaI'd went east by plane to handle some of the oompany 1 s affairs. Both Cham- bers and Bohemia, in violation of their agreement with Woodard, began making ahipments, ~nder police pl'oteotion. 1 The strikers called on the government to supply medi- ators. Two mediators arrived ~ugust 26 and set about to end the month old strike. Woodard, who was somet-ibat discontented with Chambers and Bohemia for making sbipmonto, worked out a pl'oposal with the mediators. The proposal called for all men wbo ,1alked out to return to work, that there be no discrimin- ation because of union n1embersbip, that opevators meet with representatives of the employees to discuss grievances con- cerning m.1ges and workin3 conditions, and that ove:rtime be paid when such was not part o:t: the forty hour production week.2 ~ho timber workers employed by Woodard first voted to reject the proposal, but reversed their vote four days later. Employees of the other two componies voted down the offer. l'nlile the Woodard employees returned to work on September 18, it was not until a weelt later that Bohemia resumed and three weeks before J~ li, Chambers• timber crew returned to work. Bohemia and Chambers both agreed to the same provisions as Woodard. In addition, they agreed to rooognize the Fourth of July, Christmas, Labor Day and all Sundays as holidays. 1cottage'Grove Sentinel, August B, 1960. 2!!!1sl,, September 25, 1935, 78 The strike could not be labeled a tremendous success for the worlters. Their efforts did not i-esult in ony wage in- crease, merely an informal recognition of the union. It did succeed in introducing a new problem to Wooda1•d. l?or the first time in the company's history there was an organized resistance to hia unilateral decisions. There was a dema:nd for joint determination of some policies, Tbis resistance challenged Woodard1 s long held contention that "there was never any doubt about who ran the W. A. Woodard Lumber Gom- pany • 11 In order to return the operation to normal, Woodard· set about systematically to eliminate the 11 agitators, 11 After the strilte a1 tuation bad settled do"rm, key men in the union were laid otf, including Glaude Ritter. These lay•offs were handled in a variety of ways. Some men were promoted to better jobs with increased pay only to find that after a few weeks the job would be discontinued, which, of course, required the termination of their employ- ment. Some were laid off in slack periods along '1-dth other emplo;rees and found it impossible to be rehi:t>ed, One 11 egi- tator 11 tias provoked into an argument by Woodard. As the heated debate continued the employee announced his intention to quit. That ended the argument and his job. Union repre- sentatives came down from Portland to demand that he be re- hil'ed. However, Woodard lllllde it quite clear that the 1nan had quit and he wasn•t going to rehire him-•and he didn1 t, Even with the loss of the 11 ag1tators11 the union continued 79 to increase its membership. By the summer of 1937 the local claimed e membership of over 500. Twenty-six lumber opera- tions in the area had a majority union membership in their employ. Included in that number was the w. 11. Woodard Lumber Company; which, in June of that year, recognized the union as the sole bargaining agency for the employeea. 1 As 1t will be seen in a later cll!lpter, Woodard resisted any. increase in union strength in a variety of ways. At the same.time, however. he gained the respect of many active union members ~Ii th his frankness and willingness to abide by an agreement once it was made. Control of the Company and Problems of Finance Fred W, Bradley, president of tho board of directors and tho company's largest stockholder, died June 5, 19321 in his home at Bay Oity, Michigan, from a paralytic etroke.2 His death multiplied tbe complexity of the situation toot taced the company in the early 1930•a. The will of the 75-year old lumberman divided l:lia shares in the company between various l'elat1ves. The 2063 aharea of preferred stock were divided in equal lots of 51$ 3/4 shares, The recipients of the shares wore his wife, Bessie s. Bradley; his eon, Harold Bradley; a niece, Hulda Bradley Lumbr1ok; and llia nephew, Nathan Bradley, l 121!!•, June 10, 1937. 2Timbopman, June, 1932, p. 7$, 80 The 4533 shares of common stock were distributed as follows: Hulda Lumbrick, 755; Nathan Bradley, 495; Harold Bradley (held in trust by the Bay City Trust Company), 1249; Bessie s. Bradley, 20,3l~, which were held by the Bay City Trust Com- pany as security for loans outstanding in the name ot N. B. Bradley & Sons. The elder Bradley and Woodard had always cooperated with one another and trusted each other fully. Decisions ware made as equals and not as one man holding more shares of stock than another. With some apprehension of the possible trouble that might resultsfrom having tho stock spread among so many, Woodard set about to acquire a larger number of shares. The Bay City Trust Company offered Woodard the 2034 shares held by their company. The debt for which they bad been held as security was long past due. The purchase was made for ~34,628 --$17 a share, The shares held in trust by the Bay City Trust Company were represented on the board of directors by Paul Thompson, a vice-president of that firm. With the exception of Hulda Lumbrick, Thompson, Nathan Bradley and Woodard rep- resented the major shareholders throughout the remainder of the 19301 s, The 755 shores owned by Mrs. Lumbrick were pur- chased by Woodard in 1936. As the new president of the board, Woodard met one crisis after another until it seemed that he had reached the point where every possible means was expended. The climax came in the spring of,1933, when the company, which did not even have 81 ope11ating funds, was i'aoed with the $75,000 June l payment on tb.e $,300,000 bond issue. It seemed almost unbelievable that after having met every payment the colJlPani, should fail on the last installment. There wel'e other obligations toot were already ovel'due. fast due notes totaling i46,ooo were held by two btultre. These notes tor $34.000 held by the First National Bank of B1:1y Oity, Michigan, and $12,000 held by- the 1<1:1.rf!t National Bank of 0ottage Grove had nn accumulated in- terest of $2,500. Total outstanding indebtedness for the company tJSs $123,~00. In an atterapt to solve the problem of the bond payment, Woodard went to Bay 0ity to dtsouss the mattev with the bsnk1' s direo.tora. He pt'esented the company• s 1'1nanc1al standing, discussed the oompany 1 a prospects and asked the bank to allow additional time for tl'le payment of the ~75>000. Tbe bank gl'anted u mo.t'atorium of three:, years. The :new agreement re- quired the payment of $18,7$0 on tbe first dl.iy of June, 1936, through. 1939, inclusive. It was further agreed to reduce tbe sink:µig tund payiuent from $2.50 to $1.00 par thousand board feet. The problem of the remaining $4-8,$00 was solved by the isa.uanee ~f additional bonds. The bonds, designated as "B" bonds. were secured by an indenture of mortgage subject to the lie?l of the. fivet mortgai.;e bonds. The $48DSoo bond issue bol'e an interest rate of 6 per oent. Interest was payable eer.rl.•annually. commencing June l, 19~4, with the principal 82 due as follows: $18,000 lfos. l - 18 June 1, 1940 18,000 Nos, 19 - 36 June 1, 1941 12,500 Nos, 37 - 49 June 1, 1942 Trustee for the bond issue was the Bay City Trust Company. Approval of these actions was made on April 29, 1933, by the board of d:!.roetors meeting in Euge.ne, at the office of Charles A. Hardy. At the same meeting, Woodard stated that "in order to resume the operations of the company 1t would be necessary for the company to have additional working cash capital."1 The directors agreed to raise $20,000 from their own number. The ~,20,000 loan was secured by a chattel mortgage upon the quick assets o:r the company, consia ting of lumber and logs in tho process of manufacture, accounts receivable, notes re- ceivable and cash on hand. The six month notes were in the name of Walter A. Woodard, $101 000; Nathan Bradley, $2,500; Ht1lda Lumbriok, $2,500; and Beaaie s. Bradley, $5,0oo. The notes were further aeoured by changing the benefi• ciaFy on a $50,000 term life insurance policy held by the company on the life of Woodard, The policy was changed so that $30,000 was payable to thew. A. Woodard Lumber Company and the ,r,cimaining :i,li20,000 to the persons in possession of the notes. The company•s obligations wore met on schedule from that 1 Minute book of the board of dil'eotors, W, A. Woodard Lumber Company. 8,3 time forward through the .minimizing of costs to the extent of personal sacrifice. In J.934 1 t was necessary, dtte to the dull irt0rket condition, to cancel the salary of Woodard for the last half of the year.1 Woodard made the motion himself that his salary be disoontinued until the company was betto1• able to pay. By 1936, the financial position of the company had im• proved suf1'ic1ently to declare a dividend. This presented another problem. The 2063 outstanding shares of 6 per cent, cumulative, non-pcirtioipating preferred stooil:. bad not received a dividend payment since November 17, 1926. Unpaid dividends amounted to approxi!llllltely $60 per sharo. The ·preferred stockholders agreed to waive their rights to the dividends in exchange for the right to share future profi to equally and without liroi ta tion with the ool1l!llon stock• holders. Tbe stock became non-cumulative and remained non- voting. A $2,!,0 dividend was deolat'ed on all outstanding shares of the corporation. Tho 19.30 1 s saw tho company survive the test of the most severe depression in the history of this nation. It also saw the organization of a union and t,ii tneesed the loss of two key figures in the development of the company. The death of Fred H. Bradley in 19.32 and Charles A. Haz,dy, the company' a legal advisor, in 19:37 were gl'eat loesee to the ol'ganization. 84 Their places were taken by Fred w, Blia~.le and Woodard1 s eldest son, Alton. Both of these men played a significant role in the continuing development of the company. OHAl'TER V RED TAPE AND RElIDJUSTMENT, 1940-191,!.7 The two year period that passed between the outbreak of all-out war in E.'urope and the entry of the United States into the war in December, 1941, witnessed a sudden regeneration of the American economy, The lend-lease program of the govern- ment to aid the warring democracies and this nation•s defense preparations made demands on industry that exceeded those of pre-depression days. When the United States became a participant 1n the world• wide conflict, the demands made on American industry dwarfed by comparison those of any previous period. Along with the increased demands, came increased governmental regulation and control of business. American business rapidly became a closely regulated segment of the nation·• s overall defense program. The readjustment resulted in many trying experi- ences for the more individualistic members of the business community. ~he two year period following the end of the war in 1945 presented the problem of readjustment to peace-time conditions. The tremendo1.1a demands placed on the lumber in- dustry during the war effort continued during the postwar boom as civilian housing and com.~ercial construction expanded. The major problem that confronted the industry was labor 86 trouble, as labor end management were released from their patriotic duty to cooperate. Transfer of Sawmil.ling Oeeretiona to Latham end the End of Railroad Logging ~he last major change in the prewar operations of the Woodard Company was the transfet> of the sawmill operations to Latham. Woodard had been planning the centralization of the • oompany1 e facilities since 1937• With the improved methods of transportiog logs fl"om the woods it seemed illogical to have the sawmill and remanufacturing plant separated by eight miJ.es. The oonstruotion of the power plant and dry kilns during the 193O1 s wee arranged with the long run view oi' the eventual erection of a samnill at Latham. The economic conditions of the 19301 s prevented such a move. The only e.xpansion that took pJ.ace during those years were projects that ei tiler improved the company's l!llll'.'k0t posi- tion~ such as the dry kilnsp or cost-saving features, such as the power plant. Plans by the federal government for the construction of a dam on the Coast Fork, as part of an area flood control project, hastened the decision to build a new sawmill. It was announced at a maeting of the board of directors on Feb- ruary 1 1 J.940, that the proposed dam had been surveyed and that it would be located directly between the sawmilJ. and Latham. '.!:bis would necessitate eithel'.' tbe construction of a new flume or the transfer of toe sawmill operations. The 67 latter alternative was selected. On April ,30 1 1940, an agreement was signed 1riith the gov- ernment, providing for the payment of $108,000 to the company for damages. The government also agreed to assign easements to the company for a flume, rail:,:,oad, or truck road along the edge of the dam. The agreement provided tbat the route ad- jacent to the dam be surveyed by the Corps of E~g1neers at no cost to the company.l The company continued. to ope:,:,ate the si:mm:!.11 until late august when the Corps of Engineers began tearing dot-m the flume. The old mill, which bad been constructed by Wood,;il'd' s father in 1917, had produced over 400,000,000 board feet of lumber. Dul'ing those twenty-throe yeal's it had g1•own f:,:,om a capacity of 25,000 to 12,,000 board feat pel' day. 2 Construction began on the new mill in July. The plant was built adjacent to the planing mill, In preparation for the increased load. a new power unit was added to the power plant. Other new facilities included a fourteen-acre log pond to be fed by the Coast Fork, The mill was completed ln December with the installation of the machinery, most ot which was transferred from the for- mer mill. The first log started through the saw at 9:25 A.M. lMinute book of the board of directors, W. A. Woodard Lumber Company. 2cottage Grove Sentinel, August 29, 1940, 88 on December 23, 1940.1 After sawing for a short time the mill closed do,~n for the remainder of the day fol' a<'ljust111ents. New features incorporated in the mill included a band saw and a $hotgun feed carriage vii th all dogs and adjustments on the carriage operated electrically, It was the first such head rig in the area and one of the 1'aetest in the state. With the carriage dogs holding tbe logs f:!.rmly in place, a large steam cylinder ·would propel the carriage back and fo;i:,th past the endless belt-like blade of steel, sawing the logs into rough slabs of lumber. A series of endless chains carried the lumber from the head rig to the other machinery and out into the yard. The increased speed of tho machinery gave the mill a capacity of 150,000 board feet per day. As a temporary arrangement; Woodard contracted with sev- eral local truckers to haul logs over the country road until the railroad could be extended to Latham. This temporary arrangement turned out to be more permanent than originally planned, due primarily to the "bungling" of the Corps of Engineers. Their proposed route was found to be lacking in accuracy. When the errors were corrected by Woodard's own en$ineer, the project was further delayed by the refusal of the Corps of Engineers to lotier the water level of the dam during the sulll!ller to allow the company to const~act fills between points separated by water. The company was forced 1 rbid., December 26, 19/.t.O. 89 to wait until winter, .when the weather conditions wore such that the project was delayed for several months. One fill toolt over 2.$0,000 yards of dirt. By the time the road had been surveyed and partly graded, steel·became scarce and it was impossible to obtain track. Thie resulted in a major change in one of the policies of the Woodard Company. All railroad logging was discontinued. Traol~s were torn up and sold, along with the railroad equip- ment. The rai.lroad route was \1idened and paved to provide s private logging road. The road was one of the finest logging roads in Oregon. No curve was greater than 10 degrees. Loaded trucks had a down grade all the way except for one strip where they climbed n gl'ade ot one-half of l per cent. The empty trucks returning to the woods faced nothing greater than a l} per cent grade, The paved and well maintained road ran parallel to a country road. The contrast in engineering and maintenance was much like that between a freeway and a mountain road. 1 The road resulted in reduced operating costs. '.Crucks could travel the eighteen miles nonstop, carrying whatever loads were desired. Trucks using county roads were subject to 1oad limitations, speed limits, troffio obstructions, many stops and steep hills with sharp curves. 1This statement is baaed on the personal observations of the writer. 90 'J.'he temporary roads cons tz,ueted in the woods by the company required engineering skill. Over 100 miles of these roads wound through the aoi:•es 01' timber. The roads were built with a heavy rock base so they could be used the year around. Grades on these roads ranged from 5 to 20 per cent, depending on the length of time they were to be used. Leon Morton, the construction foreman, headed the road construction crew which bJ.asted·atumps and out the roads through the rugged timber- land tii th bulldozers and heavy traotora. 1 Tho company continued to rely on contracted trucks until 1951. when they purchaaed their own fleet or 200 horsepower diesel truolts. The Gompany in Wartime The wav years were characterized by high production and large sales. Ninety-seven per cent of the compeny1 s produc- tion was purchased by the government. During the years 1942 through 1944, the company produced almost 83,000,000 board . feet ot lumber. The first million dollar sales year was ex• perienced in 1943, In view of these achievements, one might think that all was well during these years with the manage- ment of the compan~ but such was not the case. One of the first problems that confronted the Woodard lFor pictures of the Woodard Company's construction equipment and roads, see the Timberman, August, 1942, P• 49, 91 Company was the loss of manpower. Aa men vol.unteered and the draft wos increased 1t was necessary to recruit older men from the coll1!1.lun1ty. Woodard's two sons were among those who went into the service from Cottage Grove. Alton, who had been the company logging boss, served in the Army Engineers and Carlton, who was still in college, became an officer in the Marines. .· ,,. If Woodard sighed 1-1i th relief when his dealings with the Corps of Engineers were completed, his relief was short lived. His oontaot:!I with government agencies were multipl.ied enor• mously during the war years. This was because, "the problem of converting factories from peace to war manufacture, of building new plants, and of establishing priorities for the use of raw materials and man power required central planning and direction in a degree unprecedented in democratic Amer- ica. 111 One of the major war agencies was the War Production Board established 1n January, 191!2. The agency was organized with six major divisions: purchases,. production, materials, industry, operations, labor, and civilian supply, each under a separate director. Hore than two hundred advisory commit- tees from various industries were established. Anti•trust laws were suspended, allowing these agencies to establish prices, and control production, wages and sources of raw 1Barok and Blake, op. cit •• P• 666. 92 material. Tho National War Labor Board handled labor-manage- ment disputes that ,~ere not settled through ordinary channels of collective bargaining. Management then was in partnership with the government. Most orders tor lumber for military use were channeled through a aentl'Sl agenay headed by N. J. Anderson of the Andel'son &. Middleton Lumber Company in Abordeen, Washington. Because of his knot-1ledge of the lumber industry and lumber products, Anderson was able to allocate orders to mills best equipped to handle various types of orders. Thia speeded pro- duction ea well as giving all mills their proportionate share. The most disturbing factor for Woodard was thfl t 95 per cent of the government orders were for green 1umber. Because of this, Woodard's expensive dry kilns were used infrequently during the war. l"I'oduction wos placed on 11 forty-eight hour a week basis. Strangely enough, companies such as Woodard's that were able to run two shifts were not permitted to do so. This encour- aged an influx of "fly-by-night" operators. Agencies sent out thousands of bulletins dealing with every subject from production to toilet facilities. Often- times, the directives were beyond tho comprehension of anyone in tho company since they were written as though the author had never seen a tree, much less a lumber company. Frequent inspections were made by military and civilian officials. Reports by the hundreds were required in addition to the 93 normal load of correspondence and other paper work. Needless to say, Hooda1•d found the convergence of gov- ernment officials and regulation extremely trying. In some cases he out through the red tape to do things bis own way. An eASmple ol' th:l.a occurred in the summer of l.942 when there were three serious fires in Cot·l;age Grove. On July 22, a fire destroyed Wooda1°d1 :i own newly construct;ed homo, The $150,000 stl'uoture, which ocn·bained 13,000 square feet, was completely leveled. Five days later there occurred the only sel'ious fire in the history of the w. A. Woodard Lumber Com- pany. A fire destroyed four dry kilnc and 40,000 board feet of lumber :for a loss of $60,000. 1 On August 6, a fire des- 2 troyed the Chambers mill. The loss was valued at $500,000. The repo1•t regarding the fires stated that there was definite evide:ao e that the des t1•uc t:l.otl of' the Woodai•d home was the work of an arsonist and that it was probable that the same was true of the two mill f!.res. 3 Woodard and his wife rented a small home near the udll while they i~ai ted for authorization to use lumber to construct another home. 'When the reply came, it stated that no lumber was available at that time. Since i'ioodard could look out of his windoi11 and see lumber stacked all around his mill he 1oottage Grove Sentinel., July 30, 1942. 2roid., August 1.3, 1942. 3rntervietJ with Halter• .ll., Woodard, June 17, 1960. 94 "tended" to disregard the l:'eply. Two weeks after be and Mrs. Woodard had moved into their new home he finally re- ceived pern:dssion to build, This ia not to imply that the Woodard Company met the personal needs of its owners before war demands. A letter dated April 21, 1944, from the War Production Board praised the company for consistently equaling production requirements and in many instances exceeding them. It went on to state that, we must depend on the PLUS efforts of those who, at considerable sacrifice, are exceeding their quotas; and you are entitled to the satisfaction of knowing that you are included in the list of mills which are making this extra effort.l Mot all the correspondence between Woodard and the gov- ern~nt agencies was so satisfactory. On December 27, 1944, the company applied to the National War Labor Board for an increase in the wage for an off-bearer. An off-bearer stands directly behind the head saw and seizes slabs as they come from the saw, placing them flat on .live rollers. The appli- cation stated tba t the company was unable to get a man to do this wo:t>k at the wage of 95 cents per hour. The job required a strong active man and conditions were harder than in the average mill because of the high speed head rig. In comparison to the Chambere Lumber Company or the Row River Lumber Company it ran one-third more lumber • .l correspondenoe recol'ds~ w. A, Woodard Lumber Company. 95 The regular man who had held ·the job for several years had been drafted, The man vJho took his place 10ft to work for Ohambe1•s • and the company had been unable to find a sa t1s1'ac~ tory man at that wage, The company was loein5 from 5,ooo to J.0,000 feet a day due to inefficient workers. It requested a wage increase to $1,J.O per hour. Three months later Woodard received a mimeographed form letter denying the increase, On April 3 he sent this reply: GentJ.emen: We wish to thank you for the very prompt decision on our case filed December 27, 19ll4. However, the writer wishes to state that if you people should acoidently £s1i7 have a practical man stray into your organization, it would be a terrific shook to all ooncerned.l A classic example of administrative red tape and delay was the case of the chipper. The federal government made plans in 1943 for the construction of an alcohol plant in Springfield. Woodard and fifteen other area lumbermen organ- ized the Willamette Valley Wood Chemical Company and put up a total of $155,000 working capital to operate the plant. The new industry offered a promising future to the lumber ope1•ators in the area because of the highly profitable market it created for their waste products. Woodard was awarded a contract to supply wood chips to the company. Although con- struction did not begin on the $2,500,000 plant until July, 1944,2 Woodard applied to the War Production Board for 2.Eugene Register-Guard, 'July 6, 1944, 96 approval to purchase a chipper in the summer of 1943. Woodard received approval from the 'wPB to purcha ae the chipper in October, 1943. The order was then placed with the Allis-Chalmers v.ianufactul'ing Comp8Ily in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. A backlog of orders for machinery delayed its manufacture and notice of shipment waa not received until Janual'y, 1945. On January 31, Woodard sent an application to the u. s. Depart- ment of Labor, Wage and Hour Public Contracts Division in Portland requesting approval of wage rates for eleven men needed to work on the oonstl'Uction of a building to house the chipper and to make the installation. There were no estab- lished rates for the jobs requested, so Woodard based his re- quest on prevailing local rates: carpenters, $1.50 per hour; millwrights, {i1.60 per hour; ands 11 boss carpenter," $1.60 per hour. The agency in Portland turned the request over to the Wage Adjustment Board in Washington, D. c. On February 17, Woodard wrote to Representative Harris Ellsworth asking his assistance in the matter since the chipper bad arrived end the only factor holding ·up the project was the delay in the granting 01' wage rates. Later that same day a letter arrived from the Wage Adjustment Board stating tbat the application had been received, b owever, that it would be necessary to fill out some ad.di tional forms enclosed in the letter. In addition to the completed forms, Woodard sent a list of all of the mills in the area that were paying the rates he 97 bad requested. He also informed the Board that the machinery had been sitting idle- for a week. l\larch 9, a wire was sent to the Board requesting their decision on the request. Four days la tar another lettel' was sent to Ellsworth requesting his help. A telegram was re- ceived March 16, from EJ.lewoi'th stating that he t\las doing all that he could to speed the decision. A letter i'rom Woodard to Ellsworth dated,March 24 re- veals i-Joodard 1 s dissatisfaction with the entire situation. Ha began by thanking the Congrassma_n for his help and con- tinued: You realize that it is impossible to hire. men to come on a job when you do not know what you can pay tbem. I am at a loss to understand why we would 'be granted priorities, to buy new equipment and then have to go through so damn much red tape to get a wage established to install the equipment. ~he wages I have asked for have been universally paid ·all 'around us. , We have been offered a contract for sawmill waste from the alcohol pJ.ant on a very profitable basis but what is the use of tI'ying· ·to put in the equipment to handle the waste when we cen1 t,get satisfactory arrange- ments to install 'equipment we all'eady have for our saw- mill• ~his io a terrible.state of affairs when you .take into considel'a tion that aftel' the first four months of the year, we ere working undel' excise profit and the government gets 9~ per cent of what we make. I k~ow I snouldn1 t trouble :;ou with this but it m.akes lll\3 so damn mad I can hardly see. On March 29, almost in desperation, Woodard sent the following telegram to the executive secretary of the Wage Adjustment Board: On February 24 we sent by air mail application for wag~ scale. • • • On f.larch 9, we wired you for infor- ma t1on and as yet have not received reply. Would you be kind enough to give us a reply on this ·matter? By April 9, Woodard had reached ·the boiling point, as revealed in this wire to Representative Ellsworth: I have received nothing from the Wage Adjustment Board. They ignore my wires. Would it do any good for me to ask our senators to help us out in this matter? Ellsworth replied April 13: Wage application acted upon by Board this morning, Approval granted. Foul' dayG later the roof must have blown off of tbe office of thew. A. Woodard Lumber Company, when a telegram a~rived from the Board notifying the company of the wage ap- proval. The message was sent collect. The story might have had a happy ending if it were not for the fact that the alcohol plant 1,as a failure because of technical reasons. The contract for chips, therefore, was cancelled. In addition, Woodard lost $151000 he had invested in tho alcohol company. Although Woodard was rather impatient in regard to the wage !'ate decision he did not proceed to construct the build- ing and worry about the government later as he had in the case of his home, This demonstration of patience was no doubt attributable to the fact that between the two occasions he had had some trouble wt th the government. The West Coast Lumber Commission of the National War Label' Boord had pros- ecuted Woodard for violation of the Board's wage provisions. On Deceir.bar 17, 1943, Woodai•d received notice of lil bearing charging him with the following: 99 Without War Labor Board approval among other things on or about Jun0 25, 1943, you, , • put into effect an increase which has resulted from the recording of additional time for the employees in your woods oper• ation. ~he date of the hearing was set for January 5, 1944, at the city hall in Eugene. 'l'he main thing that worl'ied Woodard was that he was guilty. Ro had been paying his woods crew for nine hours work when they had actually worlted eight. He had been doing so because the area in Which they were working was extl'emely rough, and he had difficulty keeping loggers when they could work elsewhere under more favorable conditions and earn the same amount of money. While this seemed only too logical to a practical busi- ness man, Woodard lmew better than to base his defense on practicality. Instead, he hired one of the top lawyers in .Portland, Bo.t'bert L. Swett of Dey, Hampson and Nelson. Mr. Swett, after gathering tho neceaeary information, appealed to the War Labor Board to drop the oherge. 1rh1a appeal was denied. Prior to the hearing Woodard went to the logging opera- tions and told the crew he was in a little trouble because he was paying them better wages than the government wanted thet11 to nave. He also informed them that in all probabilit:,- they would be called as witnesses, but for them not to worry about missing a day•s work. He offered to pay them their regular wages, travel expenses, meals end all the whiskey 100 they could drink after the hearing--reBardlesa ot the verdict, • The hea.z•ing was conducted before a three membez, panel. consisting of a representative of the public, labor and in- dustry. The government was represe11ted by tt110 attorneys and the Woodard Company by ~w. Swett. 'l'he government attorneys kept Woodard on the stand for nearly two hours without getting a great deal ot ini'o:r;,mntion. He testified tllat all he did l-lSB check the payroll, he did not have time to watch all of the 160 l!len in his operations. lie trusted that his logging superintendent was getting nine hot1ra work out of the men. Ralph Boul, investigator i'or the Wage and Hour Division of the u. s. Department of Labor, testified that he had the statement of three of Wooderd1 s employees that thoy were working eight hours and being paid for nine. Mr. Swett called nine of the corupany1 a loggers to the stand, three of whom were alleged to have made the statement to Mr. Boul. Each logger testified that he lJent to wol'k by the whistle and quit by the whistle and was paid accordingly (the:r;,e was no whistle in the Woodard logging operations). The panel l'~led unanimously tbat the government1 a case was based on hearsay evidence which bad been proven to be erroneous. The decision was therefore awarded to thew. A. Woodard Lumber Oompany.l. laompany records. lOl ~he panel members joined the loggers in the festivities that followed the hearing, Labor Relations Cooperation was characteristic of the relations between management and labor of the Woodard Company during the war years. The oom1non goal of ultimate victory over the Axis powers was a strongly unifying force. But when tbis goal was achieved, an industry wide pattern of strikes occurred. There was, howevel', one exception to peaceful wartime relations, On Sunday mor.ning,_February 7, 1942, Woodard was aroused from his sleep by someone knocking on the door. Upon opening the door he found five members of hia woods crew who had come to' inform him that the logging crew was going out on stl'ike the following day unless their demands were met. They atated theil' demands as a closed shop, transportation to and from the woods, and a ton-cent an hour increase in pay. They received their reply as the door slamed abut, Pickets were placed around the mill Monday morning and the mill crew joined the strikers in a sympathy strike. They also added their own demand for a five-cent an hour increase. Woodard had vol.untarily given a two to five cent an hour in- crease throe months ea·r11er and still paid the best wages in the area. He was somewhat upset, especially by the discon- tent among the woods crew. The day after the strike began ha demonstrated his distaste j 102 for the situation by quietly leaving town and flying to San Diego, California. for a vacation, It was coating the company $2,000 a day to have the plant closed, but he decided it would be worth the expense if it would prevent a reoccurrence of the situation, After three weeks of relaxation in San Diego, Woodard received a phone call from a representative of the National War Labor Board in Seattle, He had been trying to locate. Woodard for over a week and insisted upon Woodard returning to.Cottage Grove to bargain with the union. Woodard informed the caller that he had not asked the workers to leave and he was not going to ask them to return. He, nevertheless, re- turned to Cottage Grove where negotiations with the represen-. tat!ves of the Sawmill and Timber Workers, Local 2915, com- menced, The negotiations were prolonged by an unwillingness by either side to alter 1 ts position, At the end of the third week of negotiations a compromise was finally reached. The 'woods crew received a five-cent an hour increase and the mill crew a two and one-half cent an hour raise. Of the five cents given to the woods crew, two and one-half cents was to be placed in a fund for the purchase and maintenance of a bus in cooperation with the company. The bus was essential be- cause of the gasoline and rubber shortages, The bus proved to be so successi'u 1 that it was continued even after the war• with the company paying all of the expense. The other 103 provision ot the contract established a union shop. The employees returned to work on March 19. Industry wide strikes occurred in 1945 and 1954. The longest of these strikes wao the 1945 strike• Tbe Woodard operations ·were sbut down for eleven weeks beginning September 24. The primary issue was wages. The Woodard Company was closed a week longer than the other mills in the area because Woodard decided be would pay too same wages as his competitors. The union claimed Woodard could not stop paying the differential. He informed the union that if he could not run the company he would close 1 t down permanently. The workers went baclt to their jobs with a raise 1n pay, but witbout the differential. It was re- stored a few weeks later, as soon as Woodard felt he had dem- onstrated his authority in the matter. His attemp~s to contain the power of the union were suc- cessful to some extent. He formed "dummy" companies to do construction work fol' the company so the wol'kers would not come under the union contract. Tbe Morton Construction Com- pany was formed in 1938 for this purpose, and continued for several years. In 19$1, when it looked as though there might be a question of union membership for construction employees, a company was again organized, this time called the Woodard Construction Oompany. Construction workers did not become union members until 1954. Woodard resisted the growth of the union because he felt 104- that he had been a working man for enough years to know what a man wanted. His policies were practical rather than pater- nalistic. Men wanted good pay and a steady job and Woodard provided the best in the area. The new mill at Latham was all enclosed; not only because it was more oomfortable for the men, but also because the men could do more work t-iben they were not burdened down with coats and heavy clothes. In the old days of the bunkhouse, gambling was not al- lowed not because Woodard was a moral reformer, but because he knew gambling could cause hard feelings between the men. It also meant an occasional all-night poker game depriving the men of the sleep they needed for a full day's work. When a man walked through the gate of the plant he was there to work, not to engage in oocial activities or recre- ation, In the same sense, the money he earned was his own and the company did not spend it for him or help him spend it. Charities were not allowed to solicit in the plant and there were no deductions made from the payroll for that pur- pose. The company did not even allow deductions for war bonds during tbe war. Woodard always maintained an 11 open door11 policy. He personally handled all of the grievances presented by the union. If an employee had a complaint, a problem or just a question, Woodard was never too busy to see him. This policy does not seem to have applied to family problems or neighbor• hood squabbles,, On one occasion a minor war was being waged 105 in the company housing projeot neal' the old tiawmill, Fin- ally, flve of the wives oame to Woodard1 s office to seek hiG counsel, Each pX'esented her side of the argument, Woodard listened quie•tly until they asked what his decision was as to who 1·1as in the right, He told them to go home and work out their problems and that if he heard one single word about any trouble in the future he would fire every one of theil' hus- bands, All was quiet in tho housing project from that time on, Postwar Readjustment The management of the Woodard Company bad many reaaone to be elated over the oessation of the war, The younger men would be coming back to replace the older and less efficient workers, It would mean an end of the extensive governmental regulations and controls, There was nearly four yeal'S of con- struction to catch up with across the entire country, meaning a continuance of lumber demand, There were, however, problems that clouded this bright picture. The postwar housing shortage that plagued many areas of the nation was also found in Cottage Grove. The influx of returning servicemen and other people seeking employment filled every available house in the area, Tbe housing short- age prevented people from settling in the area, and demand for labor began to exceed the supply, 1 loottage Grove Sentin0l, August 15, 1946, 106 Late in 1946 the shortage reached the point that the com- pany began construction on twenty-two houses adjacent to the mill. The two and three bedroom homes rented for $38 and $45, respectively. This was several dollars below what comparable houses were renting for; Woodard, however, felt that the policy was justifiable since it kept a number of men at hand in case of an emergency. In case of a fire at the plant at night the men could be there immediately. After the company began a night shift at tho mill, the houses were near enough so that the housing project was a good source of extra manpower should a worker be needed to replace someone. Woodard1 s own home was located adjacent to the mill site. The company added six addi- tional unito during the following year. Ano~her shortage plagued the company's operations early in tho postwar period. Just as after tbe First World War, freight cars became very scarce. The summer months of 1946 saw shipments of lumber fall far behind schedule. Large de- mands 'for cars in the grain states lessened the number of cars available. There were still 125 care leaving Cottage Gl':'ove pel':' week, which was about twenty-five cars above the average prewar shipments. 1 The Woodard Company continued to operate by stacking lumber until cars were available. The shortage of cars and labor was in part due to the tremendous influx of new sawmills during the war. At the start of the war there were 350 sawmills in Oregon. By 107 December, 1946, that number had increased to over 1,000, The number of mills in Douglas County multiplied ten times and Lane County alone had 230 mills, 1 Production in Lane County passed the billion feet mark for the first time in 1946,2 The increasing number of mills in the area meant greater competition tor timber sources. Long established companies, such as Woodard's and Cbambers•, became concerned over the rapidly disappearing resources, These companies were the first local firms to establish tree farms, At a public ceremony on October 12, 1944, Senator Guy Cordon formally dedicated the tree farms of the two firms, In becoming members of tbe West Coast Tree Farms system, the companies agreed to maintain roads in tbe cut-over areas and provide fire fighting equipment. Very little planting was done since the trees grew back naturally. The postwar years also brought signii'icant changes in the capital structure and ownership of the company. Woodard found that he was continually faced with opposition from Nathan Bradlef concerning the operation of the company. Bradley frequently opposed the expansion programs instituted by Woodard. Rather than have dissension on the board of di- rectors, Woodard felt it would be best if Bradley were re- lieved of his duties. At the annual meeting of the stockholders 1Ibid., December 12, 1946, 2±bid., January 2, 1947, 108 held August 15, 1946, when directors were elected for the following year, Bradley was replaced by Carlton Woodard. 1 At a meeting on the following day the authorized common stock of the corporation was increased from 5,000 to 7,500 shares. Alton and Carlton Woodard each subscribed to 500 shares. The Woodard family then held over 75 per cent of the common stock, on August 17, the directoro voted to reduce the number of preferred shares outstanding to 1000. They, therefore, voted to redeem the outstanding shares of pre- ferred stock held by Hulda Lumbrick, sister of Nathan Bradley, 515 3/4 shares; Nathan Bradley, 515 3/4 shares and the 15 3/4 shares each held by Bessie Bradley and the Bay City Trust Company as trustee for Harold Bradley. The stockholders were paid a redemption price of $100 per share. The remaining 1000 shares of preferred held by Besoie Bradley and the Bay City Trust Company were redeemed June 3, 1947- The redemption of the preferred stock wao of signifi- cance. Because of the highly profitable operations of the company during the war and the years following, dividends were liberal and regular as contrasted with the sporadic pay- ments in earlier years. Payments ranged from $5 to $20 per share. Because of the ability of preferred shares to partic- ipate equally in these dividends, their redemption amounted to a large savings for the company. The holders of the 1Minute book of tho board of directors, W, A, Woodard Lumber Company. 109 preferred stoclc objected to the move; howevev. they were powerless to resist sinoe the stock was non-voting, By the end of 19~7, the company could look back on a suooess.ful ,1ar effort and readjustment to the postwar condi- tions. \·lith the removal of any opposition to expansion and with an increased capacity to retain earnings with which to finance expansion, the management of the oonwany looked for- ward to further expansion and many years of continued opera- tion, CHAPTER VI THE El'll> OF AN ENTERPRISE, 1948-19~6 The development of the well integra'l:,ed Woodard operations over the span of years between 1920 and 1948 had been a long and, at times, difficult struggle. The physical plant at Latharo had begun as early as 1920 with the company's shipping docks. '!'here bad been the eventual development of remanu:tac- turing facilities, dry kilns, storage sheds, a power plant, a warehouse and the sawmill. The plant had been well built and well maintained, but the combination of age and the heavy de- mands of the war and postwar boom had taken their toll. In 1948, the management of the company initiated a re- development and expansion program in order to improve its competitive position. The end result was one of the most efficient lumber companies in the industry.1 The company, which provided employment and economic sta- bility for Cottage Grove, also demonstrated 1ta feeling of social responsibility by making possible several community projects. The expansion of operating facilities and its ever in- creasing role in colll!llunity affairs gave little indication 1weyerhaeuser News, June, 1957, P• 7• 111 that tbe company was in its final stages. Expansion The program to improve the company's competitive posi- tion was initiated in 1948. The overall plan called for the revamping of the older facilities, the expansion of produc- tive capacity and the diversification of products. Two addi- tional steps were/ a fire protection reservoir and the incor- porat:i.on of the I{imwood Machine Company. The machine company was incorporated in 1951, by Alton and C:arlton Woodard and Herbel"t Lombard. Through Walter Woodard's inventive and m~ohanical skills, machinery that was ordered from manufacturers was often altered to Woodard's specifications. By incorporating a full-sized machine company with a shop directly across the highway from the plant, ma- chines could be built exactly to his specifications. It also prevented delays in ~eceiving machine orders. The Kimwood I • Machine Company manufactur/fed over one-half of the company• a machinery from that time on, as well as manufacturing sawmill machinery for other lumber companies throughout Oregon. The fire protection reservoir was built in 1948, The 3,000,000 gallon reservoir was excavated on a hill above the plant, The water supply was tapped by a fourteen-inch pipe leading to an automatic sprinkler system in the plant. The revamping program for the plant itself did not re- sult in any lost time for the operations. Although most of 112 the wol'k was done du:t>ing the day, any job that would have necessitated halting production was taken care of at night. The old wooden shipping docks were :t>eplaced by conc:t>ete doc1ta • and the foundations of all of the buildings we:t>e :t>einfo:t>ced tJith concrete and steel. By ea:t>ly 1950, the rehabilitation program had progressed so that a second shift at tho plant was possible. Anothe:t> 100 men were added to the payroll, and night shift operations began in mid-Janua:t>y. Production totaled 35,760,656 feet in 1950, as compared to 26,295,886 feet in 1949. In order to use more efficiently the timber that was being logged, the company aimed at diversification. A ply- wood mill was planned eo that logs suited to plywood manu- facture could be utilized more p:t>ofi tably. The construction of a plywood mill necessitated an increase in the capacity of the existing power plant. A $1,000,000 power plant ,Jas erected. The plant was powered by two 2,500 horsepower boilers and two steam turbines of 3,500 and 4,000 kilowatt capacity. The old power plant continued to supply power for the plant while the new power- house was installed. Entirely new equipment was purchased. The changeover was comple'l;ed without a loss of a minute• a production. Upon the completion of the power plant, the company con- tracted to supply the Mountain States Fower Company with 3,000 kilowatts· for approximately $60,000 additional annual revenue. 11,3 The log pond was also increased in size in preparation for the plywood plant. The pond was enlarged to sixty acres in order to handle the larger supply of logs that would be needed. 1 on December 1~, 1950, the Cottage Grove Sentinel an- nounced, in one of its rare headline editions, that a plywood plant was to be built. The news came as little of a surprise to the residents of the area since the grounds for the new plant had been recently leveled and speculation was high that it was for that very purpose. Construction of the plant was scheduled for completion at approximately the same time as the power plant, late summer or early fall of 1951, Plans for the construction of the plywood plant were de- layed in July, 1951, when a large block of cut-over timber- land was offered to Woodard by Warren H, Daugherty. owner of the Lorene Valley Lumber Company (formerly the J. H, Chambers Company). The agreement included the purchase of 15,000 •f acres of cut-over land at ~10 an acre and the old Chambers plant, which included a planing mill, dry ltilns, storage sheds, loading sheds, and a smell lumber inventory for $412,000. The agreement also included a log cutting con- tract for 120,000,000 feet of timber owned by Daugherty. Woodard was particularly anxious to acquire the timber- land and cutting agreement. Timber was becoming increasingly 1cottage Grove Sentinel, December 14, 1950, 114 difficult to obtain, Gompet1tion for the timber sold by the government was much more intensive than in the days of the 19201 s and 1930's, when Woodard ·seldom had to bid against anyone, The competition by 1956 had reached the point• that Woodard was forced, on one occasion, to make the four' hundred ninety ninth bid before he won tho spirited oontest. 1 He paid $58,85 per thousand for timber in the same area where he had once paid $2 per thousand. The syndicate, W. A. Woodard et al,, made infrequent purchases in later years, because of the difficulty or obtaining large bloclts of timberland, The Daugherty offer afforded an opportunity to add substantially to the company's timber reserves. The cutting agreement established a base price, adjusted to the West Coast Lumberman• s Association report on log prices, Woodard contracted with the High-Point Logging Com- pany and Farmer & Sons Logging Company to cut the timber. After the logs were cut and scaled, Daugherty was paid the current price quoted in the West Coast Lumberman's Associa- tion report. Woodard did not plan to operate the manufacturing facil- ities of' the Lorane Valley Lumber Company once the existing inventory was processed. In July, 1952, after transferring a bridge crane and several storage sheds worth over ~;100,000 to his own operations, Woodard sold the Lorane Valley Lumber lill,Q.,, August 2, 1956, 115 Company to the Madonna & Arnold Lumber Company for ~311.000. ~he cutting agreement with Daugherty continued until Jul:, 11 19$,3. At tbnt timo the agreement between the two parties, with regard to the purobase ot the 15.000 aorea of out•o~er tlmborland and the cutting arrangement, was oanoelled. The pr1Qary reaaon tor the cancellation of the contract was mutual dissatisfaction with tho cutting egreem~nt. Daugherty felt tbnt he could obt~in 10 per oent more tor tbe logs on the open market and he dld not feel that the W?odard Company wos cutting fast enough. Woodard was d1ssot1sf1ed becauee the logs were o:t n lot. Aboeno first began wori&: 1'or tho Woodard Company in November, 1925, at the age of sixteen. He worked in the logging crew as a taller, buci&:er and choke setter. His wol'k experience includes employrnent with J. n. Chambers and Anderson & Middleton. Abeene left the Woodard Company in 1935, although his father and brothers remained with tbe company fol' several more years. Ile had dealings with the company again in the 1950 1 s as a partner in the Aboene Brother• s Logging Company. July 8, 1960. Blickle, l.,red w. Sales and production manager for the Woodard Company from 1935 until the company was sold. He also served as vice-president on the board of di1•ectors from 1954 to 1957• July 17, 1960. Olds, Joseph, First began work for tho \foodard Company in 1947• He was employed on the construction crew and as a millwright. M11 • Olds was a member of tho union griev- ance committee. He is still employed by the present owners of the company. Juno 5, 1900, Roberts, liugh. Owner and manager of the Cottage Grove Lumber Company. Smitb, Mrs. M. Louise. Mr. Woodard's private secretary since 1925. She provided information on many occasions and aided greatly in the use of the company records. Woodard, Carlton. The youngest son of Walter A• • and treas- urer of the company from 1948 until i_ts sale. He became president in 1954. June 20, 19.60. Woodard, Jobn. Oldest brother o.f. Wal tar A., and sales manager of the .company from 1921 untfiJ. 1935. He was employed as .the company land agent and surveyor from 1935 until the sale of the company.· July 17, 1960. Woodard, Walter A. The .builder of the Woodard enterprise. Mr. Woodard devoted many hours to interviews between January and August, 1960. Books Andrews, Relph w. This Was Logging\ Seattle: Superior Pub- lishing Company, 1954, _____• This Was Sawmilling. Seattle: Superior Publishing _Company, 1957• Barck, Oscar Theodore Jr., and Blake, Nelson Manford, Since 1900. New. York: The Macmillan Company, 1952- Brown, Nelson Oourtlandt. Logging. New York: Jobn Wiley & Sons, Inc,, 1949• ____• The American Lumber Industry. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1923, Bryant, Ralph Clement, Lumber. New York: John WiJ.ey & Sons, Inc., 19.38. Cap1 tal Publishing Company (compiler). Who's Who for Oregon, 19/+8-49. Portland: Capital Publishing Company, 1948. Clark, Donald H. 18 Men and a Horse. Seattle: Iietropolitan Press, 1949- Clark, Ro.bert Carlton, Histor;y of the Willamette Valley Oregon. Chicago: S,J. Clarke I'ublishing pompany, 1927. Cochran, Thomas c. Basic History of Ameploan Business. New York: D, Van Norstrand Company, Inc., 1959. Coman, Edwin T. Jr., and Gibbs, Helen M. Time.·Tide and Timber. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1949. Gour, Hobert M. The Plywood Age. Portland: Dini'ords and Mort, 1955. Faulkner, Harold Underwood. American Economic History. New York: Harper &: Bi;>others Publishers, 1949. • G:t>as, N.S.B., and Larson. Henrieta M. Casebook in American Business History. New York: Appleton-Oen~ury•Orofts, Ina., 1939. HolbI'ook, Stewart. Half Gentu.1.1y in tbe Timber.. Seattle; Frank MeCaf.1'rey, 1945. Horn, Stanley F'. Tbis F·aacinating Lumber .Business. N.ew York: '.I!he Bo"tlbs•Iilerrill Company, 19.$1. • .L Lumberman. Handbook and Directory of the Western Forest In- dustries. Seattle: Lumberman, 1950, 1951, 1954, 1957• MeOullooh, Walter F. Woods Words. Portland: The Oregon His- torical Society, l9$b. Reynolds, A. R. The Daniel Shaw L$mber Oorupany. New York: New York University Presa, 19 7. , Timberman. Directory of tho Lumber Industry, Paoifie Coast. Portlcnd; Timberman, 1922, 192~, 1925, 1930, 1931. u.s. Department of Labor. Job Descriptions for the Lumber and Lumber Products Industries. Washington: United States Frinting Office, 1939. West Coast Lumb.erman 1 s Association. West Coast Lumberman' a Handbook and Directory of the Western Tim"tler Industry. Portland: West Coast Llllllberman 1 a Association, 1943, 1945-46, 1948. • Articles, Periodicals and Pamphlets Almack, John o •. "History of the Oregon Norma1·schools," The uarterl. of the Ove on Hiatorieal Sociiet, XXI (Marcii=" December, 1920, l 7-~. American Forest Products Industries, Ine. Oregon Forest Facts 1 1928-22• Portland: American,· Forest Produo ta Industries, Ine., 19~9- 143 ----• The Story of Lumber and Allied Products. Portland: American Forest Products In,duatries, Inc., 1957. "Another addition to the growing W'I' Go. family: • , • a neat compact mill at Cottage Grove," Weyerhaeuser News, No, 35 (June, 1957), 6-7. Bohemia Nugget (Cottage Grove), 1901-1908. Cottage Grove Leader, 1906~1908. Oottage Grove Sentinel, 1917-1957• Eugene Register-Guard, 1944, 1947-1957, Ganoe, John Tilem, "The History of the Oregon and California Railroad," '.l'he the Ol'e on .Historical Societ , XXV (September, 3. Industrial Forestry Association, A Quarter Oentury of Indus- trial Forestry 1n the Douglas-1''11' ttegf.on. Portland: Industrial F'oI'estl'y Association, 1959. Oregonian (Portland), 1933-1935, Timberman (Portland), 1930-1956. West Coast Lumbarman•s Association. The Storz of West Coast Lumber. Portland: West Coast Lumberman's Association, n.d. Unpublished Materiel Nichols, Claude w. Jr. "Brotherhood in the Woods," \mpub- l1shed Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1957. Tyler, Robert L. "Rebels of the Woods and Fields: A Study of the :i:.w.w. in the Pacific Northwest," unpublished ih,D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1953, APFENDIOES 145 ;~:', . . ~, . ~'- -- .;_, ~ . ;, /"'1-;ii.t° \ • , :·; ., : - / ',.,_, Fred w. Bradley President, 1925~1932 Walter A. Woodard Fresident, 1932-1954 .. ,., -'·,.., . ' " Cal'lton Wooda11d President, 1954-1957 ll.i£l Ambrose i.. Woodard logging ox>aw and etaam donltay, 1919. Saw.nill and craw ot the Walta~ A. Woo4erd Company. 1920. 149 C • w. A. Woodard Lumber Company operations at Latham, 1956, Cottage Grove, Oregon. (Pictu~e on following page.) Kimwood Machine Company. llliddle lei't; compa11y housing, lower right; Coast Fork river in backvound; and home of w. A.,Woodard, upper left. '.---...:.;._,t - -,. •• • i • • ~ ~ ~;;..~,,•i~~~~~~ ~ ' - a .... _ --.. J - ~'o• -'--.~'-.. - =..,..._.. p ~~~~:,r,~ . • - . - -~•,:,,..":,~,,..,. ~- ...".. ' t ~:""'-!!!,;.,:.lllt -· ec-;_ o ~• ~,..:-.. --a. \' ' -,~,:,.. -~ -::, -,'i, & ~· ';'_ ~ ~..,. ~I!:- r:::- - .=.- . ' ' ,,. I ,I I f'"LUIY'\I:'. • ON!:. 11\l 1-.1:'. l!,2 Selected rutamoles of Woodard Timber Hold1ngo, * March, 1956 • To'l'mship 21 South Hange 3 West s-- 117 --1 • l I 0 1-- -.-2 --- 1--3·0------1----"•9- I :I r If w. A. Woodard Lumber Company I W. A. Woodard et al. Source: Company land maps. 153 Selected Examples of Woodard Timber Holdings March, 1956 Township 22 South Range 3 West I - 15-"- ---14--+---!3-----l ' · 3,3 ---- -35--- I ' $ iv. A. Woodord Lumb er Company if w. A. Woodard et al. Source: Company land maps 154 Solected Exumplos of Woodard Timber Holdings l4arcb, 1956 Township 23 South Range 3 West • - 23 -- - -- - 24---- I I ------2',---I I i1. A. t-Jooda;c,d Lumber Company # w. A, Woodard et al, Source: Company land maps TABLE l SALES AND PRODUCTION OF THE W,A, WOODARD Ltn·IBER COMPANY 192.3-1956 Production Year (Feet, B,M.) Sales 1923 12,.335,ola $ 467,517.00 1924 12,770,4 5 204,090.00 1925 25,i90,287 462,410.00 1926 27, 26,iOl 425,103.00 1927 17,732.18 220,1ob.oo 1926 30,439,591 9,30 .oo 1929 33,992,894 Wse9,al2.oo 1930 25,092,277 .34.8,8 4.00 19.31 21,832,127 222,360.00 1932 /+,721,891 82.627.00 1933 13,451,089 154,802.00 1934 14,231,700 249,185.00 1935 25,434,157 2,419.00 19.36 30,759,727 ~ 1,3413.00 1937 29,862,789 622,079.00 1938 29,172,905 5132i,, l60.-oo 19.39 32,722,822 01.00 1940 21,187,715 [7 ,374.00 1941 22,713,130 728,452,00 1942 28,341,769 987,862.00 19M 29,595,557 1,06i,075.oo 19 25,032,302 953,002.00 1945 18,937,915 719,644.00 1946 27,072,~1 1,.3t5,3.39.oo 1947 29 2457, l 2.6 2,883.00 1948 20,852,998 2,214,~5.oo 1949 26,295,886 2,238, 9.00 1950 35,760,656 2,811,062.00 1951 42,B03,45l 3,880,770.00 1952 44,826.36 /+,173,881,00 1953 46,610,245 3,959,097,00 1954 49,846,828 ,425,045.00 1955 56,881,780 ~,25.3,344.00 1956 66,213,299 6,415,600,00 18,668,123* Source; Oompany sales records. •:iThis figure represents square feet of plywood produced in 19.56. . TABLE 2 W. A. WOODARD LUMBER COMPANY SALARIES AND WAGES FOR SELECTED JOBS, FOR APRIL, 1920-1.956 .... I i:, s:: 0 ,u .... ~.µ r., aWt> m m ~r., "° s:: r., s:: Q) s:: lM A ,-i A m Q) s:: Sm ill ~ ffl i;. r., 0 P. QI ~ ~ ia:,, A_,O ..is ms 'ra-1 Q) r., .:I"" P..l:o. Cl) i::. rS (fl "' 1920 $250 -11-:Hl- N.A. ~- N.A. N.A. N.A. -tHt-·U· N. A. N.A. 1921 250 iHH;" N.A. ' -iBPd N.A. N.A N.A. N.A. N.A. 1922 250 t,250 il.50 {HHt i1.0G"" $6.oo* $5.oo·~ -{.'-iHi- $4.40* $5.oOif 1923 300 275 200 ~::•* 8.00 7.00 5.00 i6.ooa- 4.50 6.oo lt~ 300 300 225 192 300 -.ioo 22c: $½~i 8.50 7.00 5.00 6.oo 6.20 a.c:o 8.00 c:.oo C:.60 ~~. r,o0 6.00. 1926 300 300 225 ll5 8.oo a-.oo 5.00 5.60 4.80 6.oo 1927 270 270 202 l. 0 7.20 7.00 i.60 5.60 4.40 5.40 1928 300 290 220 200 8.20 8.00 .oo 5.60 4.40 6.oo 1929 350 ·290 220 200 8.20 8.00 6.oo ,!,.60 4-80 6.oo 1930 350 290 220 200 8.20 8.00 6.oo 5.60 4.80 l_Q'-11 ,oo 220 ·16C:. 162 . 7.00 7.00 I,• 81, r• . c:2 -.i.12 ~-:gr . 1932 225 175 110 150 4.10 4.00 3.00 2.80 2.00 3.63 193i 150 140 100 J.40 4.00 4.00 2.80 2.00 1.60 2.80 193 140 120 150 11+0 "AB~H< .75~ .60'~ .58{HI' .!,Q?Ht ~SB-lr-:,-" 193 200 200 150 Jli.O • 0 .75 .60 -58 .45 .55 1930 N . .ll. N.A. N.A. N.A, N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A, N.A. 19.37 225 275 225 205 1.271 1.75 .82t .75 0 77½ 1938 180 275 225 205 1.22 .67t 1. 75 .77 .70 .67 .70 TABLE 2 (Continued) - ._, I r:; i:: 0 ..w.i ~l:> ..P i:, m m A .!d i:, i:: i:, µl i:: Cl) wi:: >a i:: rl i:: A. m a> i:im 0 a. El Ill rl Cl! ~ ~ i:, El I» i:. i:t AO ...t s m El i! Cl) i:. i:. :i: Cl) CD-i:, ti)(I) .Q Ci) i:: Cl) I» .I..I. (I) Ill .., .., m !llli:t .p i:, m i:, • ~ ... _.g> IQ Cl! i:.,i:,c,o 00 mo Ill 0 r-10 Q) >t ,.:i ll:, ,.:i ll:.- Cll .t:llJl:. "" f;t, ti] ""' ll:l a:: ~ >"l' (I) !i::tIi (I) 1939 $210 i200 $225 $205 e1.22½ il-75 $ -77&- $ .75 $ .62½ $ .7!;5 1940 260 200 240 205 1.25 1.75 .80 -77½ .65 .a2i 1941 350 200 240 220 1.45 1.40 1.05 .90 - 0 .95 1942 350 240 240 1.07,r:~ 1.$2½ 1-52½ 1.15 1.00 .8727 ! 1.05 J.943 101ili_ [ 75 375 • 00 ?.7i:: ~?~ J.-27:J 1.70 1.70 J..,32'$' 1.171 1.07 1.25 1.27½ 1.70 J..70 1. 32·.lr 1.17·..- l.07· 1.2c, 1945 ioo 375 75 1.35 1.85 J..85 l-47½ J..25 1946 00 1.32: 1.22t 400 ~00 1.50 . 2.00 2.00 1-4-7½ 1.32 1.22 1.50 1947 550 475 450 1.75 2.30 2 . .30 J.,85 1.70 1.521· 1.75 1948 700 550 550 1949 700 550 -550 11..9921 2.421 2.io l. 0 65 1.70 2.42 2, 0 1.g2 2 1..92! 1.97t 1.821 1. 5 l,92 1950 700 550 550 1.922 2.42 2.75 1.97 1.82 1.65 1.92 1951 150 600 600 2.15 2,57½ 2.80 2.121. 1-97½ 2.07½ .1952 772 650 1.92: 650 2.27½ 2.70 3.01i 2.25 2.10 1.92 2.20 1953 794 .. 672- -672- 2.40 - 2.821. -3.25 2.25! 2.05 1954 800 690 2,82 3.25 2.37t 2.321 690 2.~o 2.37 2.25,. 2.05 2.35 1955 800 690 690 2. o½ 3.25 3.70 2.58 2.43 2 • .53 1956 800 720 720 2.75 3.25 3.70 2.$8 2-2~ 2.43 2.2 2.53 Source: Oompeny payroll records. udaily rate per eight-how day. iHt-changed to hourly rate. -IH:*job not in existence. 156 TABLE .3 l'RODUC'l'ION, COST HISTORY AND NUMBER OF !IIILLS OPERATING IN DOUGIAS FIR REGION, 1926-1954 Avo. Cost Cost Frod, of Prod, Index Number of Year Million Per M (Per Active Feet Feet Cent) Mills 1926 10,285 $21,51 100.0 631 1927 9,902 21.16 90.4 580 1928 10,109 20.19 93.4 b,51 1929 10.290 21.15 98.3 88.3 12.30 7,681 20.!i,2 22,J 662 19.31 5,400 16.02 74.5 1932 1933 .43,,l.e.3 1i.50 76.7 3 8 l ,20 75.3 ~i 19.34 4,396 20.00 9.3.0 l9 1232 21113 12.28 s2.6· lzo 19.36 6,8~ 19.61 91.2 772 1937 7,0 7 21.i2 101.0 818 1938 5.,510 20. 0 96.0 663 19[9 0,945 19,52 90.7 699 12 O 11282 20.67 26.1 :Zl~ 1941 9 ,l'/6 111.3 906 1942 9,058 2i•.37 2 .72 1,044 1943 8,669 .31.88 ½M.3.·~ ,: . 1,012 1944 f•4ii 33 • .34 15 .o 1,010 l 16. 86 1946 7,8i5 37.22 173.0 1, 03 1947 8,9 2 47.50 220.8 1,888 194-8 9,405 55. 13 1,675 1949 2,99,135 52.lO 2 5. .01 1.2~ 1220 101106 22• 6 228,8 11186 1951 10,416 6l.2a 294.2 1,367 1952 10,154 6 .96 311.3 99.3 195~ 9,J~,627 65.12 • • • 900 195 8, 1,757 6.3 .60. • • • 774 1955 9,609,333 •• • • • • • • Source: West Coast Lumbermen 1s Association; compiled from statistica compiled by W.C.L,A., Bureau of Census and State of Washington. Tbe Lumberman, Handbook and Directory of the Western Timber Induotriee, 1957 Edition. Typed by Mrs. Lloyd L. Armes