Roseburg history

Douglas County Lumber Company, now Douglas County Forest Products, was established in 1941 east of Roseburg with the blood and sweat of a small logging crew led by timber pioneers Sid Comfort and Maurice Hallmark.

By 1944, Ford was able to secure a bank loan sufficient to build a new sawmill in Dillard, Oregon.

The company began producing plywood in 1952 and steadily built up this aspect of the business over the next two decades.

So in 1956, Comfort and Hallmark purchased the Winchester property, five miles north of Roseburg on Interstate 5, and consolidated the company to one location.

All its acquisitions were focused on lumber facilities and timberlands, with the exception of its purchase of a telephone equipment maker in 1963, which became known as Ford Industries Inc.

In 1974, it opened two new chipping plants and purchased another sawmill.

In 1978, Ford offered the presidency of the company to Whelan.

The company was one of the largest private firms in Oregon, though Ford himself lived quietly in Roseburg and was described in Business Week (September 17, 1979) as frugal and secretive.

At Roseburg, business picked up rapidly, and by 1984 the company had opened a new melamine plant in Dillard, Oregon.

However, the high cost of timber, bad markets and labor problems forced Comfort to close the mill in 1985.

By 1990, Ford was 82 years old, and Roseburg's annual sales had risen to $600 million.

The company newspaper, the Roseburg Woodsman (May 1997), spoke of the company having purchased "enough timberlands to sustain itself well into the 21st century." Other goals the company had set included continuing the company's dominance in engineered woods.

They revamped the mill and switched over to stud production, which is what the mill thrives on today.Bruce succumbed to cancer in 2002, and Westbrook turned to two new partners – Rick Mathews and John Blodgett – for help and growth.