C&D Lumber Co. Riddle, OR history

Thus, what was a city on October 4, 1893, was no longer a city the following day.

1898 LEARNING THE BUSINESSW.H., who had relocated to Los Angeles, sends his only son, Charles Willard (“C.W.”), to work with his uncle in Seattle.

1912 MOVING OPERATIONSC.W. sells the Ballard mill and moves operations to Hood Canal to log the timberlands his father purchased 40 years earlier.

1923 ANOTHER PURCHASEC.W. purchases one of the oldest mills in Seattle, the Brace-Hergert Mill on Lake Union.

The name for the mill operation was later changed to the C.D. Johnson Lumber Company, and in 1924, it employed 800 people.

1929 COMING HOMEThe area around Hood Canal has been cleared after years of logging and, like his grandfather almost 50 years earlier, C.W. faces a shortage of quality timber.

In 1943, the Johnson family built a mill near the Coos and Douglas County lines.

1945 HARDBOARD EMERGESAfter a series of destructive fires burns some 355,000 acres in the Tillamook region, the company discovers burned and green wood can be converted into “hardboard.” Stimson’s Forest Fiber Products Company becomes the third hardboard plant in the United States.

After the death of Harold Miller, leadership of the company passes to Darrell Schroeder, a trusted employee who has worked at Stimson since 1946.

Economic decline continued into the 1950's when Toledo was replaced by Newport as the County Seat.

A flicker of hope sparked in 1952, when the Georgia-Pacific Corporation bought the failing C.D. Lumber Company.

In 1962, The Timberman was combined with The Lumberman and Woods Industries to form a new magazine, Forest Industries.

1976 PLYWOODStimson’s purchase of a plywood plant in Merlin, Oregon, melds well with the company’s other operations and makes good use of the phenol produced in Anacortes, Washington.