From an interview with Lee Rhoden
As told to Denison ThomasFebruary 1, 1995
My father, Ward Rhoden, was in the logging industry around Colville,Washington. He had been a logger or in the lumber business ever since he got out of the service in the First World War. He and Mom moved to Bend around 1922. He worked for Shevlin-Hixon for a while.
During the Depression he moved to Redmond and went to work for Dant & Russell where he learned to grade lumber. That's where he met his future partner, W.L. "Pop" Forsythe. That was around 1932 or 1933. He came to Prineville in 1935 after Pop Forsythe came here and bought out The Davidson Fuel Company which was located on land on which Pine Products sawmill was to be built.
Dad had come up through the ranks. He was a good lumber grader and knew mill management. He became General Manager after Pop Forsythe died in the '40's and he acquired Mrs. Forsythe's ownership. Originally, several people were involved in the corporation. There was Pop Forsythe, The Crawford family and Carl Soderberg. Tom Carstensen also acquired some company stock.
During World War II the Government needed lumber badly and despite shortages of fuel and equipment they made out fine because of the need to keep the mills running. In fact, they even put in a little plant to cut out Pine coffins and ammo boxes to help out the war effort. During that time between the woods and the mill there were about 60 employees. Later on that doubled. During and right after the war my recollection is that they were cutting between 25,000 and 28,000 board feet.
After World War II was over they expanded quite rapidly. They upgraded a little every year. Not real fast but as new machinery became available and as soon as it was proven, they'd buy the equipment. They did a lot of different things that were scary. Automatic pilers and so forth. It took jobs away from a lot of men. They even put in their own power plant. That was done just in the last ten years before selling out the mill.
During my summer breaks from high school in 1950 and '51 I worked in the mill. I worked in the planer department those two years. Right after I got out of high school I went into the service and that was about the end of my work with Pine Products.
The company always bid on Forest Service sales trying to save their private timber. They had bought a lot of private timberland early on. I remember it was like $2.00 an acre with huge trees on the property. Most of it was north of town. Hauling it in to the mill was only 18 miles. A lot of that timber literally, by selective logging, has lasted clear into 1990. Since the timberlands were sold, they've gone in there and butchered it.
Pine Products also owned timber over in Wheeler County and some north of Post near a little mill known as the Triangle Mill. They eventually bought out the Triangle Mill. It was originally owned by Creek Close and Floyd Pierce. I believe the owners of the Triangle Mill got into some kind of financial trouble or else they got to bickering among themselves. Pine Products baled them out and eventually took over the operation.
I had gone up there many times with Dad. There were a lot of single guys working at the mill. There were bunkhouses and a cookhouse. It was really nice up there. The logs were skidded directly into the little mill. The green lumber was trucked into Pine Products' mill to be dry kilned, sorted, and planed. That little mill started in the 1940's and operated into the late '50's, maybe even the 60's.
When I was small I used to go into the Forest Service office with Dad. Back then there was Hap Hewlitt, another forester, and an office woman. That was the Forest Service in those days. Dad got along really well with the Forest Service people.
Dad passed away in April of 1969. He would have been 69 that September. He had already relinquished some of the mill management to my brother Jack but he still went to the mill daily. He might not put in a full day but he'd be there two or three hours or whatever it took. Or he might go out to the woods and spend some time out there with the woods crews. He had a real good relationship with his employees. He would often drift around the sawmill and talk to the workers.
Dad was always extremely interested in athletics as far back as I can remember and he sponsored the real early softball teams. In grade school when we didn't have enough equipment to go around to make a team Dad bought our baseball uniforms, the pads, and everything else so we could have a team.
He was quite instrumental in the building of the original Pioneer Memorial Hospital. He supported every community project be it beautifying a park or whatever. He had already passed away when the football stadium was built and named in his honor. Some group got together and named it Ward Rhoden Stadium.
My own involvement with the lumber industry was in log hauling. A friend, Bill Volkman, and I had a truck apiece. We were hauling for Pine Products and for Jack Briggs and Mel Klaus, gypo loggers. In 1971 we formed V&R Trucking. We added a truck or two a year for three or four years and built up to where we could do the hauling without outside trucks. Eventually we had a fleet of seven trucks. We were contracted to Pine Products but we didn't run under that name. In 1973 or '74 we bought Pine Products loader and then started doing all of their loading and hauling. They did their own falling and skidding. We had a shop on 10th and Deer Street where we did our own tire work and maintenance. We operated until the 1980's.
We had some really super good drivers a lot of whom are still around here. We sold our trucks to each individual driver and carried the contract so they could pay for the trucks.
My first truck and trailer was a brand new Peterbuilt. I bought it in 1970 for $25,000. By 1980 the trailer alone cost $25,000 and the truck cost another $70,000.
Nowadays, automatic delimbers, high lead equipment, automatic fallers and other modern equipment has eliminated a lot of people. The skid Cats are so much better. The automatic fallers cuts the small trees, bunches them. and they are skidded all in one pull. A man never touches them.
Twenty or thirty years ago no on would ever have thought about hauling logs 100 miles one way. But we did that. We hauled from the other side of Snow Mountain to Portland.
The timber industry here in eastern Oregon is in decline. The precipitation in this area is such that the new seedlings don't grow fast like they do in the Willamette Valley. The timber that is growing is mostly Fir species.
I would not encourage my sons to go into the lumber and logging business. One of my sons positively loves to fall timber but I've got him talked into quitting because there is just no future in it any more.