During World War I witnessed an increased demand for airplanes for the war effort—a first. The preferred wood was the Sitka spruce found along the coastal regions of Oregon and Washington. There were numerous problems associated with not a only a limited supply, but problems with labor unions in that region.
In January 1918, a representative from the war department arrived in Westwood for purpose of selecting sugar and/or yellow pine timber for building a fleet of government airplanes. Early tests indicated that California pine was superior to Oregon fir for the purpose intended. The government official was to select 300,000 board feet of Lassen County timber to be processed by the Red River Lumber Company. Whether this transpired, the record is not clear, due in part of the censorship of certain types of news during the War.