Remembrances Every Five Years

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief, Timber Processing August 2024

Always one to have fun with numbers, let’s have some fun now. You’ll notice that this issue marks the 46th time Timber Processing has published the Annual Lumbermen’s Buying Guide. That means the first one was published in 1979. So, beginning with 1979, and in five-year intervals, here are some tidbits that were also published in the Buying Guide in those respective years. (For us oldtimers, it might even jog our memories—always a good thing.)

1979: Owens-Illinois approved the construction of a 60MMBF southern pine lumber sawmill on a 35 acre site southeast of Lake Butler, Fla.

1984: Employees at LP’s sawmill in Truckee, Calif. voted to decertify the Lumber Production and Industrial Workers Union as their bargaining agent, bringing to total 12 decertification elections at LP operations since the beginning of the strike the previous year.

1989: Eighty-eight forest products industry companies approved a proposal to establish a new nationwide coalition, the American Forest Resource Alliance (AFRA), in order to combat increasing attacks by preservationists on the industry’s timber supply.

1994: Sierra Pacific Industries acquired Michigan-California Lumber’s sawmill in Camino, Calif., saving the 105-year-old mill and its employees from termination.

1999: Champion International announced plans to build a $61 million sawmill on Champion land north of Cantonment, Fla.

2004: International Paper sold its Weldwood of Canada subsidiary to West Fraser Timber for $1.26 billion, including seven sawmills, making West Fraser the third largest lumber producer in North America.

2009: Oregon state police and Douglas County sheriff’s deputies arrested more than 20 protesters who were blocking a logging road in the Elliott State Forest near Reedsport. Some had chained themselves inside an overturned van, others had attached themselves to buried chunks of concrete.

2014: Canfor purchased Balfour Lumber, including a sawmill at Thomasville, Ga., and the Beadles Lumber sawmill in Moultrie, Ga., with a combined capacity of 210MMBF.

2019: Two new southern yellow pine sawmills started up, including Rex Lumber at Troy, Ala. and Angelina Forest Products at Lufkin, Tex., while Westervelt finished clearing ground for its sawmill at Thomasville, Ala.

2024: Oregon-based Roseburg Forest Products began a new chapter by shipping lumber out of its new SYP sawmill in Weldon, NC, called Roanoke Valley Lumber.

2029: ?????