Tag Archives: Fruit Growers Supply Company

History

A $40,000 Investment Pays Big Returns

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Construction of the FGSBox Factory, Susanville, 1920—Ed Standard

When Fruit Growers Supply Company decided to build a sawmill and box factory in Lassen County, they initially wanted to locate either in or adjacent to their timberlands. Fruit Growers Manager Frank Hutchens consulted with the Lassen National Forest which suggested two sites—Pine Creek, near Bogard Buttes and the Pine Creek estuary at Eagle Lake. There was a third alternative—Susanville.

Susanville’s business community  was eager to have Fruit Growers build their mill there. So much so, they offered a cash bonus. A total of $41,130 was pledged by 243 residents if the mill was located At Susanville. Hutchens was impressed. On August 13, 1919 Fruit Growers agreed to the location of the mill at Susanville.  In October, a check was for $40,070 was presented to Fruit Growers (a handful of individuals reneged on their pledges.

In 1920 construction began on the mill which with cost over runs exceeded over two million dollars. An additional $245,000 was spent to construct employee housing. When the mill opened on April 16, 1921 they initially employed 1,500 people. The initial monthly payroll exceeded $100,000. That $40,000 investment by the community far exceeded expectations!

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History

Logging Reload Stations

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The reload station at Camp 10, 1950

Many may not be aware that truck and railroad logging worked in tandem. Just like transition from horse logging to motorized tractors would take time, it was the same with trucks to be incorporated into logging operations. One of the benefits was trucks could access terrain to difficult for railroad operations. To get the most mileage for buck was the reload station. Trucks were used to log difficult terrain and then instead of driving all the way to mill, the destination was to the railroad’s reload station. The trucks were unloaded, then the logs reloaded onto railroad flat cars, thus an economical way to move volume of logs from the woods to the mill.

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History

Skagit Speeders and Camp 10

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Crummy
Speeders at Camp Harvey, 1947

In 1932, the Fruit Growers Supply Company purchased two Skagit speeders to be used in their railroad logging operations at Camp 10.   The speeders were an economical and easy way to transport loggers to the work site from the logging camp.

Herman Baumann, Fruit Growers woods superintendent best summed it as: “Our Skagit speeders permit us to maintain a permanent camp eliminate cost of frequent moving and provides cheap transportation to and from camp without interfering with logging trains.”

Fruit Growers Supply Company, Camp 10, Pine Creek Valley, 1932.

In 1928, Fruit Growers began preparing a new logging camp, designated Camp 10, located in the northeastern corner of Pine Creek Valley. Its layout would be largest of its preceding nine camps—with the unique distinction in a short time would be the company’s only logging camp. With the introduction of Skagit speeders converted Camp 10 one from a temporary status to a permanent one. Camp 10 operated through the logging season of  1952, the last railroad logging camp to operate in Lassen County.

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History

The Winchester Barn

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FGS barn
The old Fruit Growers barn, June 2, 2015

Researching barns is a challenge, some times one finds documentation in newspapers and some times not. The old Fruit Growers barn near the east entrance of Susanville was a perfect example. It should be noted that the barn was destroyed by fire on June 16, 2015. At that time, I attributed it to be constructed by the Fruit Growers Supply Company who at one time owned the property, along with a large box factory and sawmill adjacent to the barn. When Fruit Growers started logging operations in 1921, they utilized horses, hence the necessity of the large barn.

New information has since surfaced, and the barn pre-dates Fruit Growers. According to Mary Eloise Sifford who was born in Susanville on November 20, 1892 and grew in the vicinity of the barn wrote in her memoir:

“The Big Barn. When I was about ten years old, our neighbor Lorenzo Winchester, started building a huge hay barn way across the field about one and one-half miles towards Richmond Road. He had a couple of men hired, and they hauled out big beams, etc for the barn. The Winchester’s daughter Maude  [who married Frank Wood] was several years older that I was. They had a gentle roan named Kate. I know Maude and I rode her up to where the men were working and took lunch to them. It took several months to finish the barn. It served as a hay barn for a good man years. It loomed up and could be seen for miles. It was later sold to the Fruit Growers Supply Company. They used it for hay and grain and as a horse barn for their logging horses.”

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History

Dairy History Tidbit

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A view looking at the former Ridenour property with the Sella dairy in the foreground, which was located at the lower end of Gold Run, 1950s. Courtesy of Wendell V. Loughead

Of course, this was one of those scenarios where a week later after I posted about the dairy history, I came across an example of the material that can be found. It just takes a lot of sleuthing.

In a February 1926 Lassen Farm Bureau news report had this: “R.S. Raven of the cow testing association reports that the FGSCo had one cow this month that produced over 60 pounds of butterfat, another produced 50 pounds, five over 40 pounds and eight over 30 pounds for the month. Mr. O”Kelley states that these cows have been fed on silage and grain.”

In March 1926 Lassen Farm Bureau new report had this: “The Red River Lumber Company had 58 cows that produced over 30 pounds of butterfat this month. Fifteen of these produced over 40 pounds of fat, 5 produced over 50 and one cow 78 pounds. E.G. Scammon states the company is milking 175 cows at present.

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History

Pine Creek Valley, Lassen County

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Pine Creek Valley
Pine Creek Valley, June 18, 2015

Traveling across Highway 44, the Pine Creek Valley appears to be a desolate wind swept sagebrush flat, surrounded by pine trees. After all, the majority of human activity is concentrated at the Bogard Rest Station. By the way the area is named for John Jasper Bogard, a Tehama County stockman, who in the mid-1870s started using the area for summer grazing of sheep. Actually, the region was home to many sheep outfits, such as Champs, Cone, McCoy and Stanford, the latter as in Stanford University. These sheep outfits had a huge impact on western Lassen County, and so many of the natural features were named for them.  Continue reading Pine Creek Valley, Lassen County →

History

Fruit Grower’s Fire Lanes

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Fire trail V-drag plow, 1929. Courtesy of Fruit Growers Supply Company

No doubt this winter there are many fire officials having discussions about last year’s horrendous fires. During the winter of 1924-25 Fruit Growers Supply Company officials plotted out a new course of fire prevention after a brutal forest fire season.

In 1925 Fruit Growers adopted a new method, building a series of fire lanes. The fire lanes were 100 feet wide and completely void of vegetation, each encircling 100-acre sections of timber. They were formed by a specialV-drag hooked to a 60-Caterpillar tractor which could clear up to six miles of fire lines a day. The lanes not only served as firebreaks, but provided quick access in an emergency.

During the fire season, two crews of eight to ten men worked as fire prevention team. It was their job to build fire lines, oversee brush and slash piling, remove dead snags and maintain the company’s private telephone lines. Telephone “boxes” were attached throughout the forest, allowing for daily monitoring between the logging camps and the mill. The telephone system was also used to report fire or an accident when medical aid was needed.

By the end of 1932, the 178 miles of fire lanes constructed over 26,000 acres had proved very effective. Even though three of the. seven years it took to build them were critical fire years, only 53 acres burned. From 1925 to1940, prevention cost $40,373.54, fire fighting only $7,546.65. During World War II the construction of fire lanes was abandoned.

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History

Lumber Figures

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Fruit Growers Supply Company lumberyard, 1935. This contained 54 million board feet of lumber. An interesting tidbit. If all this lumber was used for boxes, it would only meet one-third of the boxes needed for Sunkist for that year..

This is a topic while I have addressed it in the past, its appropriate to bring it back to life for new readers and refresher for those seasoned ones.  As we explore Lassen’s lumber industry’s past, there are references to the volume of a million board feet (mbf).   During the 1920s, the lumber mills of Lassen County had an average annual output of 250 million board feet of lumber. That is a lot of lumber.

Sunkist Street,Susanville, 1921. Courtesy of Ed Standard

George Cone, who worked in the Lumber Division of Fruit Growers provided this definition using that mill’s output for the 1922 season at 62 million board feet. If it was placed on a single freight train, that train would extend eighteen miles. And since it took 6,000 board feet of lumber to build an ordinary house in those days, Cone figured that the 1922 output could build 60,000 houses. According to Cone, with an average household consisting of five persons, this production could provide the housing needs of 300,000 people!

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History

Fruit Growers Silver Lining

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Fruit Growers Susanville Box Factory as it appeared the day it opened on April 9, 1921—Ed Standard

Yesterday, I briefly mentioned that during the Great Depression that some of the grower members wanted to sell the Susanville mill. Some thought the cost was excessive, after all the growers passed a four million dollar bond to finance the construction of the mill and to purchase a billion board feet of timberland in 1919. At that time the growers agreed to assess themselves two cents per box. In addition to the assessment, for every 1,000 board feet of lumber , four dollars was budgeted to pay off the bonds, generating $300,000 annually. In 1934 Fruit Growers paid off the bonds, two years ahead of schedule and its Lassen Operation was debt free!

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History

Fruit Growers Dilemma

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Fruit Growers’ Susanville mill.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s Fruit Growers like so many sawmill operators on the West Coast had the debate whether to close their mills at Hilt and Susanville. This after all, with the realization that Fruit Growers could buy wooden boxes cheaper than they could manufacture.  One other alternative was not just close the Susanville, but sell it.

The final decision was to keep the mills open. It would be costly, but Fruit Growers understood the long-term implications. If they closed the mills, they would lose many valuable employees and would be forced to start over once the economy rebounded. Logging operations at both Hilt and Susanville were suspended that year. At Hilt 1932 witnessed the end of railroad logging there. In addition in 1932, the Susanville mill operations were scaled back to a five-day week, rather than six to avoid layoffs. The decision paid off in the long run and were still able to meet the needs of the grower members.

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