Smith Wood Products, Inc.
The Smith Wood Products, Inc. mill was the brain child of George
Andrew Ulett, who moved with his family to Coquille in December of
1928 to build a battery separator plant. Mr. Ulett had recently agreed
to merge his Ulett Manufacturing Co. of Needham, MA with Ralph Smith's
interest in a lumber mill in Coquille and a battery separator plant in
Kansas City. The resultant company was called Smith Wood Products,
Inc.
The new plant began operating in mid-1929 with Furb Emory hired as manager. In 1935, Mr. Ulett took advantage of a Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) loan to build a new lumber mill and the first plywood plant south of the Columbia River. The plant started producing in early 1936. In 1946 the business was sold to the Coos Bay Lumber Company (CBLC), with Harvey Chaney negotiating for the CBLC. In 1956, CBLC sold the company to Georgia-Pacific, who closed the mill in 1990. At that time, the mill ran three shifts and employed between 320 and 350 people.
In 1951, the Coos Bay Lumber Company opened the Johnson Mill and log pond, located 3 miles south of Coquille. In 1980, Georgia Pacific stopped using the log pond , and in 1992 sold the property to Coos County. Presently, the land is owned by the Port of Bandon and features a boat ramp and rustic picnic area for public use.
Some of the people known to have worked for Smith Wood Products:
70 of the original plywood mill workers in 1935 were reported to have come from the mills in the Puget Sound area. For more information on Smith Wood Products, the Plywood Pioneer Association publication No.17 is devoted to the Smith Mill. It can be found online here (PDF).