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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
May 20, 1965     Shelton Mason County Journal
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May 20, 1965
 
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Sec. I .Suppleme -of SHELTON-I AS0N COUNTY IOURNAE A C~NTU SIMPSON'S MAIN OFFICE BillLlllNG IS Thursday, SHELTOH ii¸ ....... ~: : ..... : :< / .~ ~i::G~i,~i¸¸ :< SIGN OF OUR TIME---Max Schmidt, Simpson Timber Company timberlands manager, and Shelton Mayor Frank Travis inspect the large sign on the Simpson printing plant wall facing First Avenue South which tells the passing world that the oampany has been on the scene in this cor~munity for 75 years, with the arrival of 1965. The community and the Mason County Forest Festival are taking note of this important anniversary in cele- brations and observations this week. I I I I I II II I I I I I AND i ' TO THE ON THEIR Maz'k E. Reed was an outstand- ing leader in the history of the Simpson Timber Company, serving as its president nearly twenty years and supervising its leap for- ward from a woods operation to a combination logging and sawmill Company. Reed was an intelligent and shrewd businessman, but pez'hans the quality which most clearly marked him for greatness was his acumen in seeing the basic right- hess of actions involving people and property. The decisions he made o11 this basis had an uncan- ny way of working out to be good policy for' the company. AN EXAMPLE was Simpson's policy of maintaining its logged- off lands, an expedient which help- ed the company survive the riots- situde~ of the industry's develop- ment while others went under. Tlie usual technique in the early days was to log off the timber and then let the land revert to the counties by not paying the taxes. This seemed to Mark Reed to be a ratber unfair way to use land, and he reasoned further that if the land were dumped onto the counties, Simpson and other busi- nesses would have to make up the tax loss some other way. Now seventy-five years after the comp- any began, the land which ha~ been held and maintained is pro- ducing valuable hemlock and Douglas fir, ! Mark Reed obsez~ed first-hane :the deporable conditions at earh' logging camps. When they tel: him to make up his own bun~ !out of boards from a hog pen ~m- ;straw from the barn, he rowe he would do something about th, camps if he got a chance, and h~ ¢tid. J-To saw to it the cabins were warm and clean and bad mattre~ -e~ an~ that the cooktnff was good Because Simpson's conditions wet, ;'otter tba, others, the compmr faced ~:~u L~bor difficnlty in t~'~ ,,va of !',o Tna~tri~,l W~-kers c' ~he W,)-~ -'wfffeetionately know' 's the Wobblies. REED DISCOVERED that sore, ~perators came and went quickly ~aking out their profits and racy !n~, on to new sources. He con. ~!nded, however, that it was a fa '~etter l hinq" to build an industr" vhtcl] could become a dependablF 'eader of a stable community. He -ncouraged people to settle in th~ '~rea with that expectation, an< when the chips were down, he -,toed by them. After the 1929 crash, the indus.. try was in the doldrums. No one had money to buy lumber. Simp- son, which had prided itself on paying above-average wages for years, had finally slashed mill pay to 25 cents an hour'. The mill was a burden' on the company's re- sources, and the next logical step was to close it. ~:; ; :i~ HI KIH , SHREWD BU fflESS FOfiCE lr~.e2:] t-U't~\V [lie col31p:.itl), COlliU C~'.'S(! ;!'p EI[II ant! sur'vivu, l)tlt, 11( thouKh! of the t/~vnspeople who %~t'] (!')i'1'3, [hc merchants who ',vo, fld -ha',e tu fold lip if the nlez~ Vd ol'e on| of ~vo;'l( {i llft COtlldn'I pay thci~~ bills The mill kept go- THESE AItP2 ~ few ofdthe poli- cies that made ~,'lark V.ce a great ~n~l progres;five leadt'v, ~tt)le to foresee and carry out his vision of a stable and p'ernmnent logging industry which saw the log from the woods to the market. IV[ark E. Reed was born In Olympia December 2,'{, 1866, and from his first v;ork as a grocer's delivery boy, rose to national pro- minence in" finance, industry and politics. Reed attended California Mili- tary Academy at Oakland, Cali- fornia, and later' became deputy state auditor and secretary of the State Land Commission. He was of rugged build with a yen for outdoor life, however, and couldn't long endure the dull rou- tines of clerical work. He was drawn to the newborn logging in- dustry, then sending out its lusty wails from the nearby forests. HIS FIRST adventures was a logging partnership witil Ike Ellis in which he learned his most im- portant business lesson: How to ~o broke. Undmmted, he remain- ed in the industry, taking a job as toreman with the Simpson Log- ging Company. Reed proved his ability in his first several year's with Simpson and soon was acting as general manager of the company'~ merc- antile, banking, logging and ship- ping interests. The company's first president, Sol G Simpson (lied in 1906. Alf:ed H. Alli.lcF.Joq was he n.~xt president, s¢~l'ving until his death in 1914, at whk:h time Reed stepped into the office re- qaining until he died in 1933. WHEN REED to(d( over, Simp- ~,on was selling billi(ms of feet of logs and could well have prospered "~ontinuing in that vein, hut Reed ~w a great futm'e for Shelton as an industrial cente.,'. In 19-. 24 Simpson formed the Reed Mill Company to build Shelton's first sawmill, to cut hemlock. N(.xt~ came the Henry McCleary Comp- any's mill next door. Then the Northern Pacific Raih'oad came to town to market the mills' out- put. h~ 1926 came news there would be a pulp mill and power flant. The ,x)minK of these plants harked the first major change in the complexion of Shelton. Skilled workmen and their families ar- rived. New homes went up. A big- ger water works was begun and streets were paved. Business open- ed their doors. M, rk Reed's dream of an industrial Shelton was com- ing tz~e. I{EICI)'S EFFORTS \veze not ~onfh~ed to his own business in- terests. He served ,;even terms in the Washington State ttousc of Representatives, was the state's GOP National Committeeman for many years as well as a member of a national committee to dr¢fft r: National Industrial Recovery Act code fo rlhe lumber industry. A~ GOP majority leader in the House, 11o got throngh a set of worklnen's conlpensation laws. the. nation's third. His efforts ,~:( alini% riding for s sealers. He jot the tween olymt IN 190l, Si]npson, l Mary siml~ major cone they devot' and inte~es educational ion. Until 191 tion :trail past gram Grammar ~ourney tl omplete ' M~s. tenth the Reeds r-tiffh SchO NEXT School High to the Reeds field and ed. On Reed died, struggle which tnent busi~ in~s in Mark tin folding conditions cation in the the m rival dustrial work left a future to b~dld t( Timber leadership. ~ 7 >i,/ /::/i:L¸ ! , )i ~iii!;¸ ¸¸¸ ~:' ?"!i i A Part of Slmpson's Fleet of Logging Trueks Serviced By Shaub-Ellison Co. We join with the entire Pacific Northwest in Saluting the Simpson Timber Co. on its contribution to the growth and development of this area PROVIDING KEY leadership during Simpson Timber Com- pany's present time ,of dynam- ic expansion is Henry Bacon. eighth man to be president of Simpson Timber Company dur- ing its seventy-five-year history. RKI ETFI Toward a Common A happy, more prosperous is our goal just as it has of Simpson Timber past 75 years. BEST WISHES FOR CONTINUED GROWTH AND SHELTON --- TACOMA-- PUYALLUP SINCE 1920 5th & Franklin Streets Empbyees Federal Credi SheltO b /:;i