Longview Fibre Paper and Packaging Inc history

Longview’s box plants were enlarged in 1934.

Then a fourth paper machine was purchased, followed by the fifth machine in 1941.

By 1948 a newly constructed container plant in Los Angeles began operations.

An-other newly built plant was opened in Oakland in 1950.

Business was profitable enough for the Los Angeles and Oakland, California, plants to double their capacity in 1955, in an effort to keep pace with growth on the Pacific coast.

Longview Fibre acquired Downing Box Company in 1960.

A new container plant near Minneapolis was constructed from scratch in 1963, in order to serve the Twin Cities area.

In 1966 Longview Fiber acquired Waltham Bag Company, a producer of grocery bags out of a Massachusetts-based factory and owner of ware-houses in other locations in the East.

A tenth paper machine was put into operation that year, and another newly constructed container plant was completed in Amsterdam, New York, in 1967.

In 1986 about 40 percent of the company’s timber production was sold in Japan, China, and Hong Kong.

Longview continued its capital improvements agenda, investing close to $100 million in its pulp and paper mill and converting plants by 1987.

In the summer of 1990, a strike was averted when pulp mill workers approved a new four-year contract that had been in dispute.

In 1992 Longview Fibre started the first ever solid wood products mill; the central Washington mill utilized very small logs and included special equipment from Finland.

Longview was still buying nearly half of its wood chip supply from independent saw mills in 1993, and as the major wood source for independent mills was federal forests, costs soared.

In 1997 Longview began building a corrugated sheet plant in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to meet growing box demand in the North Central region.

In 1998 Longview Fibre announced plans to exit the grocery bag business to focus more attention on higher priced merchandise, such as color print bags, and handle shopping bags.

In fiscal 1999 it posted net earnings of $19.9 million on revenues of $774.3 million, and by the close of the fiscal year Longview’s plants were running at 97 percent of capacity.

Still, the company struggled with a poor timber market, which affected profits in the timber division during the third quarter of 2000.

“There was this constant struggle to make this paper side or the mill more profitable through the addition of technologies … as a consequence the company undertook a lot of debt which then when Rick Wollenberg took over in 2001, he had to deal with.

Fibre managed to improve its earnings and reduce its debt by 2003, by generating more business and shutting down unprofitable machines.

Whistles moves from the origins of the company, rooted in the early establishment of the city, to the company’s ultimate sell-off to Brookfield Asset Management in 2007.

Although the book has been about five years in the making, Wilma wasn’t hired for the project until about 2013.

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