MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS. 



$20,000,000 INVESTED 



IN TIMBER LANPS 



A list of Grand Rapids bank presidents and 

 directors shows that a third of these men are 

 financially interested in western timber, writes 

 Robt. H. Coit in the Grand Rapids Press. 



It is an axiom among timber men to act 

 quickly and quietly; consequently little ap- 

 pears in our newspapers in reference to tim- 

 ber deals. Grand Rapids is recognized, how- 

 ever, throughout the country as a lumber and 

 timber center and in the lumber trade journals 

 a half column is weekly devoted to reports 

 from Grand. Rapids and vicinity. 



There are without doubt twenty or more 

 millions of Grand Rapids money represented 

 in this western timber and in this standing 

 timber they have an investment that the best 

 of authorities predict will double in the next 

 six years. The depletion in quantity and con- 

 stant increase in prioe of standing timber has 

 now gone to a point where it is today recog- 

 nized as one of the soundest commodities, 

 either in regard to price stability or ready and 

 constant market. 



It is well known that the upward tendency 

 in lumber prices has been brought about 

 through two natural and inevitable conditions, 

 namely, a diminishing timber supply and a 

 widening demand for the sawed product. 



In referring to official charts it will be seen 

 that the prices of white pine up to 1897 were 

 almost staple, but since that date the price of 

 white pine has more than doubled. 



It was this increase in price of white pine 

 that encouraged local investors to look to the 

 west and south for timber lands. It is said 

 that the first Grand Rapids men to go out to 

 the Pacific coast for timber were the late J. 

 H. Wonderly and L. W. Wolcott. They 

 bought redwood some twenty-five years ago 

 in Mendocino county, California; timber 

 that can never be reproduced, for it took thou- 

 sands of years to grow it. 



Next to Weyerhauser, the timber king of 

 America, the Blodgett Company, limited, of 

 Grand Rapids, is said by good authorities to 

 own the largest private timber holdings in the 

 state of Oregon. Most of the Blodgett lands 

 lie in Clatsop and Tillamonk counties, just 

 south of the 'Columbia river, counties that 

 have high stumpage values because of the ac- 

 cessibility of the Columbia. 



The Edward and S. B. Lowe timber lands 

 consist of large tracts of fir in Chehalis coun- 

 ty, Washington, just north of Aberdeen. 



In California the White & Friant Lumber 

 Company owns sugar pine lands in Madera, 

 Mariposa and Tuolumne counties. These 

 lands, which they bought some twenty years 

 ago, are located in two main divisions. The 

 upper tract in Tuolumne and Mariposa coun- 

 ties is situated within the Yosemite National 

 park. The lower tract is finely located for 

 lumbering, being only about four miles west 

 of the San Joaquin river. The sugar pine is 

 a very valuable wood and large shipments of 

 it find a ready market in the east, where it is 

 taking the place of the old Michigan white 

 pine. 



In the last few years several large timber 

 holding companies have been organized in 

 Grand Rapids to secure western timber lands 

 for investment. Of these the McKenzie River 

 Lumber Company is one of the largest. The 

 secretary of the company has stated that it 

 had a paid-up capital stock of $550,000, and 

 that the company owned 8,440 acres of fir in 

 Lane county, Ore, just west of the govern- 

 ment reservation. The board of directors is 

 composed of Grand Rapids men, namely, 

 Lewis H. Withey, W. C. Winchester, Henry 

 Idema, J. H. Bonnell, John J. Foster, Charles 

 Chick, E. P. Merrick and Claude Hamilton. 

 Some of the heaviest stockholders are John 

 Byrne, James Barnett and Stephen Sears. J. 

 H. Bonnell and C. H. Chick, who promoted 

 the company last year, spent some six weeks 



in Oregon looking over various timber propo- 

 sitions. 



W. H. White, formerly of Grand Rapids 

 but now of Boyne City, is the promoter and 

 president of the Tillamonk Lumber Com- 

 pany, a holding company capitalized at $1,000,- 

 000. The company owns 20,000 acres of fir in 

 Tillamonk county, Ore. The stockholders are 

 Grand Rapids men and some of the heaviest 

 holders are William Herpolsheimer, Amos S. 

 Musselman, Claude Hamilton, J. A. Covode, 

 R. P. Tietsort, A. W. Hompe, S. A. Sears and 

 W. A. Winchester. 



Grand Rapids has tost a great many able 

 men who went west to settle, seeing the great 

 opportunities there in timber. Charles H. 

 Chick is one of these men. He started as. a 

 boy working in the Maine woods, gradually 

 drifting westward to Michigan, and he was 

 one of those who helped bring the last drive 

 down Grand river about twenty-five years ago. 

 He was a director in the Fifth National Bank 

 and made Grand Rapids his home for many 

 years. At present his office is located in 

 Portland, Ore., where he has worked up an 

 excellent business in timber lands. Howard 

 Morton, son of Constantine Morton, the well- 

 known lumberman, is in Chick's employ, learn- 

 ing the timber business. 



About thirty years ago, a small drug store on 

 Canal street was owned by a man who at the 

 present time is one of the most successful timber 

 men in America. This is James D. Lacey, who 

 today has offices in Portland, Seattle, New Or- 

 leans and Chicago. His firm employs a large 

 force of timber "cruisers" or estimators, who help 

 in furnishing banks, trust companies and inves- 

 tors, expert reports on timber lands. It is said 

 that Lacey's business is now mainly the handling 

 of timber outright and on contingent interest. 

 One of his partners is Wood Beal, formerly of 

 Grand Rapids, who now has charge of Lacey's 

 Chicago and New Orleans offices. 



Lacey has interested a great many Grand Rap- 

 ids men in western timber; in fact in Clallam 

 county, Washington, alone he has sold over 

 twenty-five thousand acres of timber lands to 

 Grand Rapids men. The Gay Timber Company 

 in Mason county, Washington, is a local operating 

 company that he has promoted. Its board of 

 directors is made up of A. W. Hompe, R. W. 

 Irwin, R. P. Tietsort, John A. Covode, George G. 

 Whitworth, Henry Idema and W. H. Gay. 



SAWMILL FOR BRIMLEY. 



A movement is on foot to establish a saw- 

 mill and a woodenware factory at Brimley. 

 A. T. Bound, of Brimley, is the chief mover 

 in the enterprise, and he has interested a num- 

 ber of Sault Ste. Marie men and others in the 

 project. Mr. Bound owns a mill in the south- 

 ern part of the state which, if a mill were to be 

 established, he would move. The location of 

 the proposed mill will be at the mouth of the 

 Waiskai river. The matter of securing the site 

 is now under consideration. It is said that 

 the intention of those interested is to have 

 the mill built this summer in readiness for 

 operations next winter. 



The promoters consider the proposition a 

 very promising one. The presence of the river 

 makes it possible to get excellent shipping 

 facilities out of Brimley. There is a bountiful 

 supply of several kinds of wood, covering a 

 large tract of land, thus plenty of material 

 would be available. The mill, at first, would 

 have capacity of about 60,000 feet per day. 

 This would be enlarged as the business de- 

 manded. 



A feature mentioned in this connection is 

 that of erecting a plant for the manufactur- 

 : ng of woodenware. There is plenty of tim- 

 ber available for that purpose and the market 

 is good. 



"I am running seven camps and employing 

 between 400 and 500 men," says Frank Buell, 

 of Bay City. "Three of my camps are putting 

 in logs exclusively and the others are putting 

 ii: some logs and peeling bark. We have more 

 men at work than we did last year at this 

 t'me." 



LUMBER OUTPUT 



TO BE RESTRICTED 



The lumber industry, like that of iron and 

 steel, has been hit hard by the slump which 

 was precipitated last October. Up to that date 

 the lumber business was exceedingly active, 

 the volume of business being large and prices 

 were the highest experienced in years. 



There has been marvelous development in 

 the industry in the south the last few years, 

 men of capital in the north having made large 

 investments in timber lands, companies were 

 organized and mills built. When the slunip 

 came many of the operators in that section 

 were compelled to realize in a short time. In 

 other words they were of necessity obliged to 

 sell their lumber. The result was a slump in 

 southern pine prices, and thousands of car 

 loads were dumped into every available north- 

 ern market at a reduction of $5 and $6 a 

 thousand feet in price. 



This lumber came into competition with 

 northern hemlock and lower grades of other 

 woods and in connection with the existing con- 

 ditions in the trade contributed to intensify the 

 depression. And while there has of late been 

 some improvement in the market trade lacks 

 the vim and activity which has characterized it 

 for some years past. 



In the Saginaw valley and in Canada in vol- 

 ume it is about 30 per cent less than one year 

 ago at this time, while in Ohio and some other 

 points which consume a large amount of north- 

 ern lumber the falling off in business is great- 

 er than it is here. 



The Georgian Bay district of Ontario fur- 

 nishes about 70,000,000 feet of lumber annually 

 to the supply of the Saginaw valley and sends 

 many times that quantity to lower lake ports 

 and into the eastern markets. A large number 

 of Saginaw valley and Michigan lumbermen 

 are operating in that district and it is safe to 

 assume that fully one-half or more of the out- 

 put of the mills in the district is handled by 

 Michigan men. Such firms as E. B. Foss & 

 Company, Mershon, Schuette, Parker & Com- 

 pany, Bradley, Miller & Company, Loveland & 

 Stone, Mouhhrop Company, Eddy Brothers & 

 Company, handle from 20,000,000 to 60,000,000 

 feet each of lumber, from that district every 

 year, and George D. Jackson, of Bay City, 

 shipped 100,000,000 feet out of Georgian Bay 

 ports in the season of 1906. 



Recently, in view of existing conditions and 

 the continued lethargy in the trade, a confer- 

 ence of a few large Georgian Bay operators 

 was held at Toronto for the purpose of taking 

 into consideration the advisability of securing 

 a unity of interests in reducing the output of 

 the mills in the district this season. So favor- 

 ably did the proposition appeal to those 

 present that it was decided to get all manu- 

 facturers together and take up the matter in 

 earnest. 



E. B. Foss informs The Tribune that a meet- 

 ing of the lumber manufacturers in the Geor- 

 gian Bay district will be held at the Canadian 

 Soo, June 23 next, for the purpose of arranging 

 to reduce the output of the mills 25 per cent. 



.The output of lumber in the district in 1906 

 was approximately 625,000,000 feet. The old 

 stock has been all sold but not a great deal of 

 the cut of this season has been contracted for. 

 Last winter the quantity of logs put in was 30 

 per cent less in quantity than the output the 

 previous year, but about 20 per cent of the log 

 crop last season failed to reach the mills to be 

 manufactured and those added to the cut of 

 logs last winter gives the mills a full stock for 

 this season, in fact more than they would man- 

 ufacture under ordinary conditions. 



A reduction in the output for the season of 

 something more than 100,000,000 feet it is be- 

 lieved will exert a beneficial influence upon the 

 trade, and in maintaining the market. When 

 the cost of stumpage, logging and manufacture 

 is taken into account, lumbermen are not dis- 

 posed to sacrifice their property. Bay City 

 Tribune. 



