Proflles , , . Art TwohyFi{ty Years In Lumber

ARI IWOHY-Populor lunber tolesmcn, lumber yord broker ond ontique cuto colteclor, is shown ot left os he looks todoy qnd below os o young Son Fronciscqn of 18, when he wenl wost-ond into the lumber business. When Alt qrrived in Los Angeles in 1910, its populction wqs 3l9,0lD ond everybody laughed ol lhe reqhor who

When Art Twohy finished high school back in Ior,va, hc went to work in the master mechanic's office of the Illinois Central R. R. and thought he was going to be a railroad man. Instead he's been fifty years a lumberman, and 44 of them in Los Angeles selling lumber to the yards.

After a year of railroad work, young Trvohy had a chance to take a position in the lumber business in San Francisco at the western lumber purchasing office in the Rialto Building of Carr, Adams & Collier of Dubuque, Iowa (then Carr, Ryder & Adams). It didn't take him long to drop the idea of learning the railroad business.

San Francisco, in those days be{ore "the Fire," was something out of this world to a l9-year-old from the middlewest: trans-Pacific shipping, the Navy' ships anchored at the foot of N{arket street, the Bay ferries, all the cable carseven on Market street.

Il. A. Blocklinger rvas in charge of the office. Herb Crawforcl, later general manager at Scotia, was also in the office. A year later, Twohy went to Scotia with Crarvford and they started to vl'ork for the Pacific Lumber Company. Our boy Art worked in the mill, 60 hours a rveek, at 2O cents an hour. After a year of that, he got a promotion to the office, where he stayed four years.

Rollie Pitcher, rn'hom a lot of you oldtimers will remember later as a salesman for E. K. Wood in I-os Angeles, was also in the office. Trvohy finally became assistant superintendent of manufacture and shipping. There \\'as no overland railroad at that time and the companv shipoed al'l its lumber from Fields Landing by vessel. The Pacific owned the Prentiss, Aberdeen and Dispatch: later they had built the Temple E. Dorr and William H. Nfurphy. Twohy served for a while as quartermaster on the ships running to San Francisco.

In 1910 he u'as transferred to the sales department at Los Angeles. C. W. Penoyer, who had succeeded Selwyn Eddy as president of the company, made his headquarters there in the Hellman Building. They built the big drying y'ard and planing mill at Wilmington, just west of ivhere Consolidated Lumber Company is today. The lumber yard, shed and planing mill was all handled by an overhead monorail svstem: there were no allevs. trucks. etc.

Junius Brorn'ne was hired to run the Los Angeles sales ofifice and Penoyer moved to San Francisco. The Los Angeles office u'as moved later that year to the Central Building, i08 West 6th St., and Twohy started out on the road calling on retail yards with Redwood in car lots to be shipped out of the big yard at Wilmington' His travels were by streetcar and railroads, with the help of a stout pair of legs. It was interesting work and Art Twohy made friends in the lumber business who are still friends after 44 years.

In 1911, the company bought him a four-cylinder car called the Everitt to get around in. Trvohy was the first lumber salesman in Los Angeles to drive a company car. Auto traffic wasn't a problem then . the main troubles u,ere dirt roads, bumpy oiled streets, multitudes of horsedrawn wagons crawling along, no gasoline stations, terrible tires, acetylene headlights, and mud-mud-MuD !

In 1914 he started in for himself and has kept at it ever since. In those days everything-Douglas Fir, Redwood, etc.-came in by boat. Twohy took over the Albion Lumber Company as one of his accounts. They had a Redwood mill on the coast belorv Fort Bragg and at times he had three vessels to look after.

Tu'ohy has consistently stayed in the Los Angeles wholesale lumber business all these years. He has had his office for 27 years in the Petroleum Building, 714 W. Olympic Blvd. At present he represents Edrvard Hines Lumber Company's sawmill at Westfir, Oregon, and J. F. Sharp I-umber Co.. Yreka. California.

One of Twohy's sidelines for which he is well knorvn is selling lumberyards and sawmills in both California and Oregon, l,here he is a licensed broker. He also founded the Horseless Carriage Club and was its first president. The club has 4500 members all over the world. lIe owns a dozen antique cars, among them a 7902 one-cylinder Pierce Arrow, 1905 Buick and 1906 White Steamer.

Art and his boyhood sweetheart, Doris Richardson of Dubuque, u'ere married in 1912. Their daughter Beverly of Van Nuys has two children and their son Dick of Palos Verdes Estates, with his ou'n engineering business, is also the father of two.