Logs, Lumber and Labor Unions

Description

No other industry has been as important to the development of Coos County, Oregon than
forest products. ¬ The original sawmills built by Henry Luse and Asa Simpson in the
early 1850’s started Coos Bay on the path to prominence. Next came the massive sawmills.
built by Elijah Smith of the Oregon Southern Improvement company at Empire, Oregon and
Charles Axel Smith’s investment in the “Big Mill” at Bunker Hill that encouraged outside capital
to the region and the local forest industry blossomed. As the forest industry grew, labor was
necessary to cut the massive trees, man the giant saws that converted the giant logs to lumber,
and the longshoremen who loaded the cargo ships for the California markets.

¬The introduction of the plywood operations by Menasha Woodenware, Weyerhaeuser and
Coos Head and paper mills built by Menasha and International Paper Company expanded the
regions reach into multiple wood products. With the growth of the industry came the need to
organize employees in collective bargaining units to improve wages and working conditions.
¬This book traces the development of labor unions in the forest industry throughout the Pacific
Northwest in general and around Coos Bay in particular. It is an interesting story about strikes,
federations, labor councils and sometimes violence.