Section E Pg 24 Missoulian Centennial Hamilton Lumber Co. Grows Rapidly In 10-Year Period
Hamilton Lumber Co. Grows Rapidly In 10 – Year Period
About 15,000,000 board feet of finished lumber is produced annually by a Missoula lumber firm which has grown steadily during its 10 years of existence.
It is the L. A. Hamilton Lumber Co. which was started as a partnership by Leonard A. Hamilton and J. R. Kirkpatrick, who took over a planing mill at South avenue and Houston street to do custom planing.
This partnership was dissolved in 1952 and Hamilton took over the operation. The firm expanded in 1954 through the purchase of a sawmill at the site, operating it until November 1957 when this part of the operation was closed.
Meanwhile, in 1955, the Dewey Lumber Co. was absorbed into the business under a lease arrangement which continues to the present. When the original sawmill, purchased in 1954, was closed in 1957, the mill on the Dewey site was placed on a double-shift basis.
Wood Waste Utilized
A dry kiln was completed and placed in operation in 1959. Also in 1959 the company installed a debarker and chipper for production of wood chips, utilizing slabs and wood waste previously burned. The firm through the years has added to and improved its office facilities.
Purchasing about 15,000,000 board feet of logs and rough lumber each year, the company sells about the same amount of finished lumber annually to all parts of the nation, most of the carload shipments going to the Midwest for distribution. Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, larch and Englemann spruce are used mainly by the firm.
Logs are brought in by both truck and rail from western Montana within a radius of 100 miles of Missoula. A sizable portion of the finished product is sold in Montana, being distributed by both truck and train.
About 50 persons are employed at the plant, and the company provides employment also for the logging operations. The annual payroll runs about $250,000. Hamilton is president of the firm; Russell Harlan, plant superintendent; Ernest Treichel, sales manager, and Vernon R. White, secretary-treasurer.