Louisiana-Pacific Corporation

Biographical/Historical note

Feather River Pine Mills, Inc. was a major Northern California lumber company for a number of years. In 1920 the Hutchinson Lumber Company (a West Virginia hardwood lumber company established in 1908 by Robert Lee Hutchinson), bought the Wheeler timber tract northeast of Oroville. The company purchased large tracts of timber in Butte and Plumas counties in California and began building railroad lines, sawmills, a planning mill and dry kilns. An office and plant were officially operational in Oroville in March 1922. Hutchinson Lumber Company was the town’s major employer with over 1,100 employees (Oroville at the time had a population of 3,500) on its payroll. Nearly everyone in Oroville, either directly or indirectly, depended upon the lumber company’s payroll. Hutchinson Lumber Company was one of the largest lumber companies in Northern California (in its 1925 season the company cut 100,000,000 board feet of lumber).

A. H. Land moved from West Virginia in 1922 to help improve the financial situation of the company. The western operations were refinanced, reorganized and incorporated as the Hutchinson Company of California. Hutchinson went into receivership in 1926, excessively burdened by a huge debt load. Butte County Superior Court ordered the Oroville holdings of the company sold to satisfy its creditors. The only bidder was A. H. Land, holder of most of the bonds. Mr. Land and Dr. O. O. Cooper reorganized the Oroville properties of Hutchinson as Feather River Pine Mills, Inc. in April 1927.

On October 6, 1927, the Oroville mill and 50, 000, 000 board feet of lumber were completely destroyed by fire. Two days after the fire, Feather River Pine Mills discharged over 1,100 employees. It was an economic disaster for the town. The fire brought an economic depression to Oroville two years before it hit the rest of the country. Feather River Pine Mills wasn’t able to resume operations immediately due to several factors. Following the fire there was litigation with the fire insurance companies and the loss of funds due to the failure of the Detroit Trust Company where the insurance funds were deposited and then the depression destroyed the lumber market. Subsequently they lost their insurance funds in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bank holiday.

In 1938 they were able to secure a Federal Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan and built a new sawmill at Mooretown (now known as Feather Falls). The former logging railroad became the common carrier Feather River Railway on May 24, 1940. From July 1940 to July 22, 1955 the Feather River Railway operated as a common carrier. Resumption of lumbering operations again provided employment for Oroville, although not on the scale of the operations in the early 1920’s. Mr. Land organized National Wood Treating Company as a subsidiary in 1947. The plant was located in South Oroville. Feather River Pine Mills continued operations until 1955 when the Land and Cooper families sold the company to Georgia-Pacific Corporation.

Georgia-Pacific immediately sold the National Wood Treating Company to Koppers Company, but retained ownership of Feather River Railway. The Georgia-Pacific Corporation continued the Feather Falls operation with some changes made in the logging department. The Georgia-Pacific Corporation made the woods and sawmill operations separate units, forming a new company to take over all timber lands, logging equipment, etc. known as the Inman-Poulsen Timber Corporation. Georgia-Pacific Corporation was the parent company to Inman-Poulsen Timber Corporation, Feather River Pine Mills Company, and Feather River Railway Company. These three companies operated as separate entities, although the Feather River Pine Mills Company owned all of the stock of the Feather River Railway Company. Feather River Railway was abandoned as a railroad in 1967, due to flooding of a portion of its line by Lake Oroville, but continued for a few years as a trucking company. In 1974 the Feather Falls sawmill was closed when the new forest products factory was opened in South Oroville. The Feather Falls Division of Georgia-Pacific became part of Louisiana-Pacific Corporation when Georgia-Pacific split.

From the guide to the Feather River Pine Mills Records, 1920-1972, (California State University, Chico, Special Collections, Meriam Library)