Pacific Lumber Company history

Over the ensuing 20 years they added more partners and began significant logging by 1882, at the present main site and town, which was originally known as Forestville.

By 1888, the company became the largest in Humboldt County, with 300 employees and lumber shipments exceeding 20,000,000 board feet (47,000 m) annually.

By 1905, Simon Murphy, Sr., originally of Detroit, Michigan and later of Whittier, California, completed the process of gaining control of the company.

Through the rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, World War I, and numerous floods on the Eel River, the company came into the modern age.

And then in 1910 the second sawmill in Scotia, Mill B began operations, becoming the world’s largest redwood sawmill.

The first school in Scotia was built in 1914.

With the growth and expansion, Scotia had a population of 1,000 in 1929, making it the second largest town in Humboldt County at that time.

In 1931, Stanwood Murphy became president of the company.

Doug David and Herman Tenzler founded North Pacific Lumber Co. in November 1948 with an initial investment of $15,000 and 12 employees in three trading departments.

In 1950 the Scotia Shopping Center was built, replacing the “company store” Pacific Lumber Mercantile.

It moved its corporate office from Vaughn Street to Gideon Street in Portland in 1955.

By 1961, academic scholarships were also provided to students who were children of company employees.

1962: The company forms North Pacific Trading to trade agricultural and other products.

In a company brochure from 1963, NOR PAC boasted that "[i]f all the lumber and plywood sold annually by North Pacific were laid end to end, [it] would form a path 12 inches wide that would encircle the earth at the equator more than eight times."

NOR PAC's traders also began to focus by region with the debut of the Western Sales Division, which sold products only in 11 western states (and later Hawaii and Alaska). In 1966, NOR PAC also added its trucking department to facilitate the shipping of its products to all the western states.

In 1968, it moved into mill operations with the purchase of a mill in Waynesboro, Missouri.

1969: The company buys the San Poil Lumber Co. in Washington state.

In 1975, PALCO was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Despite such bad press, in 1979, NOR PAC achieved its peak volume of business.

Yet despite the 60 percent cutback in personnel--the company scaled down to about 200 traders and slightly fewer than 1,000 employees by 1980--NOR PAC served more than 20,000 customers and producers that year.

1982: Leo Gibbons succeeds Doug David as president and chief operating officer.

Described as a survivor, according to a 1983 Oregon Business article, David was "adept at steering an intuitive course through the wood products industry's many minefields." After World War II, the timber industry cut its way west, and full-scale logging began in the Pacific Northwest.

On September 30, 1985, the venerable Pacific Lumber Company, having maneuvered through more than a century of business peaks and valleys, was taken over as a result of stock purchases culminating on September 27, 1985.

On February 26, 1986, the day after the completed takeover, Warren Murphy resigned, turning over the company to John A. Campbell, a man who had been one of his executive vice presidents.

NOR PAC began importing radiata pine from Chile in 1989.

On May 24, 1990, a bomb planted in the car of Earth First! activist Judi Bari exploded, sending her and fellow activist Darryl Cherney to the hospital.

In 1991, it had purchased Saxonville USA, a leading distributor in the northeast of building materials sold to professional lumber dealers and manufacturers.

Beginning in 1992, it initiated a training program for its traders, teaching them sales skills, improving their market knowledge, and widening their computer skills.

In 1994, it acquired and merged with Schultz, Snyder & Steele Lumber Co. of Lansing, Michigan, which would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of NOR PAC.

The company also moved into other markets, as, in 1996, when it acquired Moore Co., an electronics wholesaler.

1997: Company changes its name to North Pacific Group, Inc.

On September 17, 1998, David Chain, an Earth First! activist was struck by a falling tree while trying to stop logging in Pacific Lumber property.

Hill cofounded the Circle of Life Foundation (CILF), committed to transforming human interactions with nature, in 1999.

2000: The company acquires Burns Lumber.

NOR PAC ranked once again as one of the largest privately held companies in Oregon in 2002, according to Oregon Business, moving up to second place.

2003: The company sells both North Pacific Composites and its steel department; Ross becomes chief executive officer.

The company filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2007.

On June 6, 2008 the judge preliminarily decided to confirm the Mendocino Redwood Company option for reorganization and signed the order on July 8, 2008.