Berg Companies history

Portland experienced a building boom in the years following the 1905 …

In 1907, a former boss in San Francisco, A.J. Lennon, invited Berg into a partnership, and Berg moved to Portland to take charge of a new umbrella and glove shop on Morrison Street called Lennon's, which prospered under his direction.

In August 1909, Herman and his three brothers went into business together, starting in the basement of a hardware store in Minneapolis, Minnesota, under the name Selby Lake Sheet Metal.

In 1910, John A. Zehntbauer, Carl C. Jantzen, and C.R. Zehntbauer founded the Portland Knitting Company with a few knitting machines above a small retail store at 231 Alder Street in Portland.

In 1921, Berg purchased the store and changed the name to Charles F. Berg Company.

Berg's son, Forrest Berg, joined the company in 1922 to manage the store's new Ready-to-Wear department.

In 1924, the store established a board of college students--possibly the first of its kind in the Pacific Northwest--to help identify the latest trends.

In 1930, the Berg Brothers attempted to sell the company but were never actually paid for the business so they reabsorbed operations.

In fact, for DeBourgh's 100-year anniversary, DeBourgh held the celebration in Minnesota and found some of those original lockers first made for the University of Minnesota in 1931! The lockers had been transferred to a local YMCA and still bore the original number plates.

In 1937, the Bergs approached The New York Public Library's Board of Trustees to propose donating their collection to the Library.

In September 1940, one month before the donation of the Berg Collection to the Library, Doctor Berg purchased Howe's collection of some 16,000 books and manuscripts.

Young generously agreed to the proposal, and on May 8, 1941, his collection was incorporated into the Berg.

Roger Berg founded Berg Mill Supply Company on November 16, 1962, as one of the first brokering companies operating without its own recycling yard.

The company was formally incorporated just over five years later, in January 1968.

Growing opportunities in international markets led the company to enter into a partnership in the summer of 1970, to form Classic Fibres, Inc., Berg Mill Supply’s export division.

Berg Chilling Systems Inc. was founded in 1972 to build chillers and industrial cooling systems primarily for the plastics industry.

With an Introduction by Josephine Young Case [exhibition catalog]. [New York]: The New York Public Library, 1974.

Although the sale in 1983 marked the end of the Berg store, the building continues to be known as the Charles F. Berg building.

New York: The New York Public Library, 1985.

They ultimately decided on La Junta, Colorado, a desert town in the southern part of the state, where they moved in 1990.

Now located on S. Mulford Road in Rockford, the company is owned by Mike Stroud, who purchased it from Robert Berg in 2006.

Further reading Oral History Interview with Forrest Talbot, SR 9412, Oregon Historical Society Research Library Written by Sara Paulson, © Oregon Historical Society, 2007.

One of the many examples is when Oakland’s 2011 Longshoreman strike put pressure on client businesses, Berg Mill Supply established local warehouses allowing them to continue operations.