Bob Sell
As told to Denison ThomasMarch 7, 1995
Consolidated Pine was established in 1952 when one of Hudspeth's operations, called Central Oregon Pine, was leased to Sid Kulick and Howard Shirvan, principal owners of Consolidated Lumber Corporation out of Brooklyn, New York. Consolidated Pine operated the Central Oregon Pine sawmill on a lease basis from 1952 until 1959 and in 1959 purchased the mill.
In 1952 Consolidated contracted with Hudspeth Sawmill Company, or with the principals of Hudspeths, to buy around 30 million feet of timber a year and lease the mill. It was on a per thousand basis of production. That enabled Hudspeth to fully depreciate the mill. Then he turned around and sold it and took a capital gain on the sale.
Sid Kulick and Howard Shirvan from Consolidated Lumber Corporation were customers of Hudspeths in the 40's. And during the Second World War, or around 1943-'44, finished lumber was extremely hard to come by. The story goes that Sid and Howard and two other fellows from New York were in Portland looking for more lumber suppliers. They had an appointment to meet with Johnnie Hudspeth. The fellows from back east were sitting in their hotel room at the old Portland Hotel playing gin rummy when this fellow from Prineville comes in. He was Johnnie Hudspeth and he wanted to borrow a large sum of money.
An agreement was made to advance Hudspeth $100,000 on their future lumber purchases and right there a counter check for $100,000 was written, signed, and handed over to him. It is said that Hudspeth looked at the counter check and wondered if it was good.
As it turned out not only was the counter check good, but so was the word of the sawmill man, who paid off his loan by shipping lumber back to his New York customers. The agreement that was sealed with a handshake lasted for the better part of fifty years.
Sid Kulick and Howard Shirvan owned 90% of the stock. Originally, Jim Garrett and my father each had 5% interest. When my father retired I acquired his interest in the company.
My father came to Prineville in 1947 after the Second World War. He came over as a business manager for Johnnie Hudspeth. As things progressed in the late 40's and early 50's he became Hudspeth's comptroller. He had to keep the financial wheels on the wagon for the Hudspeth Enterprises, and that was no easy undertaking. It was during the time that Hudspeth was acquiring a lot of ranches around the area and he already had half a dozen sawmills going. He was pretty free-wheeling as far as financial wheeling and dealing was concerned. It was up to my father to see that the bills got paid.
In about 1950 John Hudspeth, along with his brothers Fred and Claude, acquired the Blue Mountain Mills in John Day. That was a very large lumber producing facility. Claude was opposed to the expansion and left Hudspeth Sawmill Company at that time. John controlled the majority of the company and made all the major decisions.
Consolidated Pine produced about 30 million board feet of lumber a year and operated the mill from 1952 until it closed in 1992. In addition to the sawmill, dry kilns, and planing mill in Prineville, we had a moulding plant in Bend. It was located at the present site of the Bend High School adjacent to what was Leonard Lundgren's sawmill. We operated there until 1959 when we bought out Hudspeth's interest and then moved the moulding plant to Prineville. It is still operated and maintained on the Lamonta site.
We shipped finished lumber throughout the United States. To Los Angeles, Kansas City, Chicago, all over the country. Our production was 10 to 15% Fir and Larch and 85% Ponderosa Pine. All of the Shop and Better grades were used in manufactured mouldings. The Fir Dimension and Pine Common were shipped throughout the country.
We had about 150 to 160 employees in the milling operation. Ours was strictly a manufacturing facility. We didn't have our own trucks or Cats. We contracted with gypo loggers for the logging and hauling. During my tenure at Consolidated Pine as Sales Manager there were people who stayed with the company up to 30 years. A number of the fellows came right out of high school and worked most of their adult lives at the mill.
Originally we bought timber from Hudspeths private source. After purchasing the mill in 1959 we got into the competitive bidding act of buying timber from the Ochoco National Forest. Back then, we were dealing with a small government agency. As the years went on and the concept of multiple use of the forest became an event, the Forest Service seemed less interested in selling timber. And as people became more aware of environmental issues, the Forest Service became something other than just an agency to sell trees. So, as the Forest Service grew in number our contact with them was disbursed to the point where it became almost an adversarial relationship. They were trying to do one job and we were trying to do another and our goals were not necessarily the same.
But we made some great friends. Pete Crudson, George Boyesen, Shirley Coonse, Les Sullivan and others during that time were a great pleasure to work with. Not that they were not making us conform to our contractual agreements, but they were simply nice people to deal with.
The people involved in Consolidated Pine were active in the community. They served on the county budget committee, the Crook County School District budget committee and the City Council. By doing so, we were able to help see that the tax money that the company contributed to Crook County was spent in a good manner. We tried to not only contribute to the public in terms of dollars, but also to make a contribution to the public in the form of energy and work. This was done not just by our company but all of the millworkers in this town contributed a great deal to the lifestyle of Prineville. It was a good place to live and work.
The mill stopped cutting logs in 1992. I retired in 1987 and so I missed out on the big timber shortages when they absolutely quit marking timber for sale. So I don't have a first hand knowledge of what it's been like to try and operate a sawmill without a log. But it must have been pretty tough.
We have also seen the best years of the City of Prineville Railway. In fact of the entire railroad industry. The deregulation of the railroads was the beginning of the end of that mode of transportation as we knew it.
Back in the 50's we had hundreds of short-line railroads operating in this country. Each one of them had representatives who came through this area soliciting traffic. It was great fun figuring out the rates and routes and how to speed up the freight in getting from here to the east coast, or how to slow the freight down when you didn't want it to get there too fast.
We had a lot of business with lumber wholesalers in Eugene who would buy transit cars going east. We would load the box car and start it going east not knowing where it was going to end up. It was quite a game to find the slowest possible route to get the maximum amount of time to sell the car. If the car was sold while in transit, the customer would divert it and send it on to the ultimate destination. We drew a lot of that business back in the mid-50's.
Crown-Pacific, formerly Louisiana-Pacific, and Ochoco Lumber Company are the only two remaining lumber production facilities here now. All of the rest are out of business. I believe as time goes on the Forest Service or whoever distributes the Federal timber is going to loosen up a little and there will probably be enough timber so that one or two local mills can continue to operate. That would certainly be my hope.
But I think Prineville's future is going to be pretty much in taking advantage of the natural beauty and resources here with emphasis on hunting, fishing and other recreation.