Boise Cascade history

1958: The company's first pulp and paper mill and first corrugated container plants are built.

In 1964, the company entered office products distribution.

In 1967 alone, Boise Cascade acquired United States Land Company, Lake Arrowhead Development Company, and Pacific Cascade Land Company, and amassed real estate holdings of 126,000 acres in more than 12 states, with the majority of the land in California.

Upon the 1968 purchase of Princess Cruises, the company shifted its marketing efforts away from independent travel agencies, which had originally spurred the growth of the cruise line.

By 1970 it was clear the company's land development business was in serious trouble, accumulating losses that placed the entire organization in jeopardy.

With the share price at around eleven dollars, Hansberger resigned in October 1972; John Fery was promoted to CEO and moved the company back to its core competencies of building materials and paper products.

In its suit, filed in 1980, the FTC claimed that the company had purchased office products for resale to commercial users and retailers at prices below those available to competitors.

In 1984, 450 people at the mill processing 200 million board feet.

Boise Cascade lumber mill, Yakima, 1985

When the paper industry rebounded in 1986, Boise Cascade and other manufacturers began construction to increase both production and capacity to meet the demand.

1987: Company sells its consumer packaging division.

Still plagued by the same problems that had affected the company since the beginning of the recession in 1989, Boise Cascade responded by expanding its production of specialized papers and increasing the breadth of its office products distribution business.

By 1990, however, this response to the market upswing resulted in an oversupply of paper and excess industry capacity that caused prices and profits to drop.

Sales dropped to $3.7 billion from nearly $4 billion in 1991, and the company recorded a net loss of $227 million.

Immune to the ups and downs of the paper industry, BCOP had been a consistent bright spot for Boise Cascade since it exited from the wholesale sector in 1992.

Boise Cascade continued to be troubled into 1994, suffering from the prolonged slump in paper prices and burdened by a $2 billion debt load.

In 1995 the company sold its remaining stake in its Canadian newsprint unit, Rainy River Forest Products Inc.

A plywood plant in Yakima, Washington, had also been slated for closure but remained open following a major fire in September 1998 at the company's plywood plant in Medford, Oregon.

In 1999, Furman Lumber of Billerica, Massachusetts, was purchased, which led to a nationwide building material wholesale distribution system for Boise Cascade.

In 2003, the company acquired OfficeMax and Boise Cascade Corporation changed its name to OfficeMax.

Madison Dearborn Capital Partners purchased the paper, forest products and timberland assets which became Boise Cascade, LLC. When Tom Stephens began as CEO of Boise Cascade, LLC in 2004, the company had incurred $3.2 billion in debt to fund the acquisition.

Frontier planned to close the mill in 2005, but delayed the action when a fire damaged another mill.

In June 2006, 225 employees in Yakima received a 60-day notice that their jobs at Frontier would end and that the mill would close on August 5.

Tom Carlile assumed the position of CEO in 2009, and began to lead the company through the slow housing recovery with investments in EWP and veneer facilities and the building materials distribution footprint.