Jack Rhoden
March 8, 1995We came to Prineville in March of 1936 after W.L. "Pop" Forsythe asked my father, Ward Rhoden, to work with him in the new sawmill he was building here for Howard Crawford. Forsythe was Dad's boss at Dant and Russell in Redmond. Crawford was the owner of Tum-A-Lum-Lumber Company. He wanted the sawmill to cut out some timber he had taken in on a bad debt and, initially, it was not expected to become a long-term mill.
It was the late 1930's--the Depression years. Work was not too steady. Dad was a lumber grader and lumber inspector working at some of the small circle mills around Sisters one of which was Dant and Russell. Eventually, he was brought into the main Dant and Russell plant in Redmond where he met Forsythe and became his assistant.
Jack Rhoden
The sawmill being built here officially became Pine Products Corporation in 1935 when it was filed as a corporation. It was the first large sawmill and the first band-type mill in Prineville. Ochoco Lumber Company followed and then Alexander-Yawkey and Hudspeths. The principals of the newly incorporated company were Pop Forsythe, president; Howard Crawford, secretary; and Howard Soderberg. Soderberg was a lumber wholesaler out of Spokane.
Dad was to be head grader, yard foreman, and Forsythe's assistant. In the next few years they found that there was a lot more timber available. They started acquiring timber from private sources. Dad could see it might be a lot longer term for the mill. He started buying up private timber and timberland.
Late in 1940 or early '41 Forsythe died. The next year, Mrs. Forsythe sold her interest in Pine Products to Dad and he took over as vice-president and general manager. Howard Crawford moved up to president. Tom Carstensen out of Portland, who was auditor-accountant for the company, and Dan Moore, the office manager, also acquired stock.
The company was quite successful especially during the years of World War II. The sawmill was running three shifts six days a week. Everyone was doing what they could towards the war effort. The mill was cutting and shipping casket stock for the military. Dad started a box factory for making ammunition boxes.
Some of the houses that were built around the sawmill site are still standing. They were built by employees using rough lumber from the mill. Furnishing lumber for the employees to build their homes nearby was good insurance against mill fires. They were nearby when needed to help put out a fire.
The employee's houses were scattered all around on both sides of Lamonta Road. There were family type houses and little cabins for the single men. The water supply came from wells through pipes driven ten to fourteen feet into the ground.
There was a large house behind the old planer shed where a Mrs. Brink took in roomers and cooked for the mill employees. Other boarding houses sprung up. My mother, in late 1936 or early 1937, opened up her house, too, and served lunches to the workers.
A lot of the millworkers didn't have transportation so we furnished a little bus to pick them up in town. They could have their meals out at the mill at two or three different places where there was real good food prepared by good cooks. Many of the houses were torn down when we started modernizing in the 1950's. Some came down as late as the 1980's.
When World War II ended there were a lot of ups and downs for the sawmill. We went back to two shifts. When we were running three shifts and doing everything manually we had 320 to 330 employees. Before we had dry kilns everything was hand piled out in the yard and the lumber was air dried. The lumber was torn down again and brought to the planer. From the planer it went down a chain and was loaded, piece by piece, into boxcars sitting on a rail siding in the planer shed.
Debarker in action at Pine Products, 1968
In the 1950's we started modernizing. Late in 1940 and the early '50's wood chips became quite valuable and in demand by the pulp and paper industry. Our wood chips went to Longview Fibre Company in Longview, Washington. At first we hand picked the slabs, put them on a table, and knocked off the bark for the chip market. Eventually this led to putting in a big chipper and a debarker. The logs went through the debarker before going through the sawmill. The refuse went into chips instead of the burner. The sawdust and shavings were saved for the particle board industry. It got to where we utilized absolutely everything.
It was profitable to get more mechanized. Something none of us wanted but it was necessary in order to stay competitive. We purchased a Lawson stacker which eliminated some men. It went in across the road from the sawmill and lumber was brought to the stacker by carrier and taken away by carrier.
As we got more mechanized, we put in set works on the carriage where a sawyer could operate the carriage alone. We put in an automatic log kicker so logs could be turned without a peavey. In 1964 our two planers were putting lumber directly into the boxcars. The lumber was carried down a chain where a worker jacked it into the boxcars. We were the first to install a 16-knife Stetson-Ross planer. In 1964, we put in an all new trimmer system, lumber sorters, the whole works. This eliminated more people but, again, if we wanted to stay in business, mechanization was necessary.
In the 1940's Pine Products was buying lumber from Spoo's sawmill in the Mitchell area. Spoo was buying timber from the Collins Brothers and from Fran Cherry and anyone else who had timber. Green lumber from Spoo's mill was trucked into our mill, then dried and surfaced. Also in the 40's, Pine Products acquired the Triangle Mill, a small circle mill cutting 30,000 to 40,000 feet a day. In addition, green lumber from Hudspeths' Bridge Creek and Camp Watson mills was coming into our mill. Lumber from those sources and from our own mill gave us a very large production.
We sold in carload lots. Most of our lumber went out of the area to east coast and midwest markets. Today, there are mills closer to that eastern market. In the early 60's the freight rate to New York was $1.41 per hundred pounds. Today it is up to $6.00 or $8.00 per hundred pounds. Most lumber shipments now go by truck. Trucks can arrive at the destination in three days; it takes a railroad car two weeks. There is extra handling and extra labor involved in boxcar loading.
I had worked my way up to sales manager and when Dad passed away in early 1969 I took over as president and general manager. Howard Crawford died in the early 1980's. His son, John, and I bought up the rest of the company stock. After John Crawford died in 1985 his stock was divided up among his widow and their children.
Another big modernization came when we installed the small log mill in the late 1980's. We were down to 135 people and running two shifts on the sawmill and one shift on the planer. This new planer handled considerably more than what the other two older ones did. Bob Jones and several engineers helped build the small log mill. It was the most up-to-date small log mill in the country. Behind it we put in a green sorter with 36 sorts for sorting lumber. The lumber came out of a bin and with the push of a button it was stacked and stickered. We went from 135 people to about 95 but our production, by running the big mill two shifts and the small log mill one shift, increased to 245,000 to 250,000 feet a day.
Ward Rhoden Stadium was named in honor of Dad because of his generosity and support towards school athletics and the community at large. Leonard Wilkinson was the instigator of building the stadium, and he wanted it named to honor Dad's memory. His company, Coin Millwork, helped finance the project, as did Ochoco Lumber Company and Consolidated Pine. Pine Products donated lumber and money for the project, as did my family.
Pine Products shut down the sawmill operation permanently in 1992 and the private timber was sold. We had many great employees over the years who stayed with us until their retirement and even beyond retirement. I cannot remember all of their names, but among those faithful old-timers who came to work prior to World War II and stayed with us there were: Lee Adams,Sr.; Eugene Brick; Sam Coles; Claude Davidson who came with Dad from Redmond; 'Bus' Evans; Maurice Gerke; 'Luke' Gillam; Paul Harrison; Dick Helms; Willis Mahlin; Pauline McGaughey; Ed Mitchell; Jim Mitchell; Mike Mitchell; Norm Pentecost; Mike Pernicka; Fred Russell; Johnnie Sill; Ed Smith; Tom Smith; Bill Tackman; John Umhauer; Harry Vaughn; Lester Waite,Sr.; Harold Waite and many others.