Fruit Growers Suppy Company-Sierra Pacific Industries
by Mellissa Ray
Title
Fruit Growers Suppy Company-Sierra Pacific Industries
Artist
Mellissa Ray
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The mill began operation in 1924 (some accounts have the mill opening in 1922) and closed in 2004. Currently, the mill is being knocked down. This image was taken October 16, 2009.
History:
Fruit Growers Supply Company
Hilt-Susanville-Westwood-Burney
By Tim I. Purdy
Sunkist & The Wooden Box
"Through the first half of the 20th century the piece of furniture found most often in a newlywed's home or a college student's dorm wasn't really a piece of furniture. It was a wooden box. Turned on its side it held books, knickknacks, canned goods and spices. Covered with cloth it was topped with lamps, flowers and photographs . . . These wooden boxes, now pieces of history were some of the United States first recyclables. Before they found their way into the nation's homes, they were used to ship the nations produce. One of the most prominent producers of these wooden boxes, were surprisingly a group of California citrus growers."
And so the story begins with the origin of the California citrus history to the formation of one of the most succesful cooperative marketing associations--The California Fruit Growers Exchange, known simply today as Sunkist.
In 1907, the year the famous trademark Sunkist name was coined, the citrus growers were faced with a lumber shortage of boxes. Prices soared from 12 to 23 cents per box! The box shortage combined with inflated prices, prompted the Exchange to seek alternatives for an adequate supply of boxes. The Exchange formed a separate company to purchase supplies for its growers, and primarily for boxes. On October 5, 1907 the Fruit Growers Supply Company was incorporated.
Fruit Growers first task was to secure boxes for the growers at a reasonable price, which they did sort of. It is from there this work explores Fruit Growers' Northern California logging and sawmill operations, along with changes in the citrus industry that led to the conversion from wood to cardboard in 1955.
Susanville - A Fruit Growers Original
Distinct of all of its operations was Susanville, in Lassen County , the only mill designed by Fruit Growers. A severe lumber shortage created by World War I and the successful advertising campaign of the Sunkist name required to Fruit Growers to expand its lumber interest. Exchange growers needed 14.8 million boxes compared 6.6 million boxes when Fruit Growers was established.
In 1919 Fruit Growers purchased the Collins Tract in western Lassen County that contained a billion board feet of timber, and thus the Lassen Operation was established. In 1922 Fruit Growers was high bidder of the Pine Creek Unit Timber Sale for an additional billion board feet of timber.
The Lassen Operation unfolds from bonds to box covers, railroad logging camps to logging trucks, to the planned conversion of mill to a paper pulp plant in the 1950s."
http://www.citlink.net/~lahontan/fruitgrowers.htm
"SP Inds mill at Susanville was first established on the present day site by the Fruit Growers Supply Company as a result of a large timber purchase from the Pennsylvania Lumber Company, which was a Collins family enterprise (A current Collins family enterprise: Collins Pine Chester, CA), during 1919.
Fruit Growers Supply was the buying arm of the California Fruit Growers Exchange, which is now known as Sunkist, the Supply company is still in business today, but owns no sawmills, it is one of the largest holders of California timber lands in the state.
Construction of the mill began in late 1919 and continued into 1921, the mill opened April of that year. Logging for the mill began during 1920. A logging railroad was constructed into the woods from an interchange at Westwood Junction on Southern Pacifics Fernley Westwood branch.
For the next 32 years Supply company loggers and railroaders provided the mill at Susanville with logs via the interchange with the Southern Pacific, which carried them from Westwood Junction to Susanville and the mill. After the close of rail logging in 1952, the Supply company utilized trucks for the haul to Susanville.
With the growing acceptance of corrugated cartons and the slacking demand for wooden boxes to pack oranges, the Supply company sold the mill to Crook and Emerson. The sale was consummated during June of 1963. This new operation was christened the Eagle Lake Lumber Company.
As a side note the mill owned by the "Supply" company cut about 2.3 billion board feet of lumber over its 42 year operation. Output of the mill was almost evenly split between diminsion lumber, pattern stock and box shook (wooden box parts).
A fire in 1965 destroyed much of the facility and along with ongoing improvements changed the face and internal organs of this mill. Eventually the Eagle Lake Lumber Companys mill was folded into the Emerson Familys Sierra Pacific Industries, becoming known as the Eagle Lake Division of SPI.
Also of interest, this is, as stated by SPI, one of only a handful of California mills that could handle big logs. And this is why a large share of the Arizona burned timber was funneled to Susanville.
In the early 1980s the Espee tried to abandon what was left of the Fernley-Westwood branch, and then known as the Susanville branch, Wendel through to Susanville. The branch was put on the endangered list by both the ICC and CALTRANS.
As best as I remember it, during 1986 Espee found a solution to the cost of the abandonment process, with willingness by SPI to maintain a rail head. A lease of the railroad to SPI was signed. The leased railroad became a division of the Quincy Railroad, another SPI operation."
Jimmy B
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,659783
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June 3rd, 2017
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