The Mills That Built Coos Bay, Oregon – 2nd Printing 2026

The Mills That Built Coos Bay, Oregon

The Mills That Built Coos Bay and the Men Who Made It Happen-reprinting as second edition.  It is the same history of the Mills that populated the shores around Coos Bay, Oregon from the mid-1850s to around 2020.

The book grew to 574 pages as I traced backwards the lives of the timber barons who helped build Coos Bay. Names like Frederick Weyerhaeuser, Charles Axel Smith, Edward Steptoe Evans, Philip Buehner, Frank Deming, Al Peirce, Gus Adelsperger, William J. Conrad and many others all helped our area grow, including more modern ones like Wills and Wylie Smith of Coos Head Timber. The history of these timber entrepreneurs are covered in some detail along with over 700 photographs, charts and tables.

I also became fascinated by the connection between the big mills around the bay and the small “Gyppo saw mills” that populated the back country of Coos County. Men like George Youst, Hurley Collver and Glae Gould left their unique mark on our area, so I decided to dig into their contribution.

When this book came out in 2020, it sold out very quickly. Over these past years, several people asked for copies, but I had none. They asked if I planned to do a second printing. At the time, the cost of doing a hard cover reprint was prohibitive. In late 2025,  I was able to connect with a graphic designer in Chicago who was able to reconfigure the layout of the book such that I could do a “print on demand” as a paperback cover edition.

The new copy is an exact copy of the original, except that it is printed as a paperback (8 1/2” x 11”) rather than a hard copy book. The cost has been reduced to $60.00.

Bill Lansing

2026