Simpson Observes lts Centennial

When Canadian logger Sol Simpson established his logging company in Mason County, Wa., in 1890, his peers said he was 'Just another greenhorn who wouldn't last a year." This year, the company he founded marks its l00th anniversary, and is the second oldest continuously operated forest products manufacturer in Washington State.

From its beginning as a tiny timber company, with "50 men and l2 horses," Simpson has grown into an international company employing some 8,000 people in forest management, building products, pulp, paper and plastic pipe operations in nine states.

The original enterprise, S.G. Simpson and Co., was incorporated as Simpson Logging Company in 1895. It remained primarily a logging operation until 1925 when it opened its own sawmill in Shelton, Wa. Sol Simpson is recognized as one of the first of the lumbermen of his day with the vision to reject the traditional "cut and get out" practices of the era by holding on to cut over land and initiating a concept of renewing the forest resource on a sustained yield growth basis.

Today, Simpson operates timber, pulp and paper, and plastic pipe subsidiaries under a holding company, Simpson Investment Company, in Seattle, Wa. A direct descendant of Sol Simpson's maiden ventures in logging and sawmilling, Simpson Timber Co. (STCo) is based in Shelton, Wa. STCo owns and manages more than 780,000 acres of forest land on the West Coast. It is currently harvesting its second crop of trees and planting its third. Fulfilling the sustained yield vision of its founder, STCo plants more than 6 million seedlings a year on its forest lands and has completely reforested 250,000 acres in Washington and California. Today, there are more trees growing on Simpson land than there were when the company was founded.

Simpson Timber Company produces coastal redwood, Douglas fir and western hemlock lumber, overlaid plywood, overlay papers and wood panel doors at its eight plant facilities in California, Oregon and Washington.

Now the largest of the operating companies, Simpson Paper Company, headquartered in San Francisco, Ca., presently employs some 4,500 people in the production of high-quality printing and writing papers, specialty papers, bleached and unbleached kraft wood pulp and lin- er board at I I mills in California, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Vermont.

PWPipe, Simpson's plastic pipe subsidiary, ranks as the largest manufacturer of pvc pipe on the West Coast. It turns out extruded plastic pipe for use in irrigation, water works, and electrical applications, employing more than 500 people in its plants in Washington, Oregon and California.

Simpson's centennial is being celebrated in a number of wavs.

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