Ross Yord Pqces Scrn Jooquin volley's Growth

llan{ord, California, isn't in the west's fastest-gror,ving area. Nor is it industry's bedroom, transportation's hub or any of a hundred other chamber of commerce expressions. You walk down Hanford's shaded Douty street in this warm-hearted San Joaquin Valley town (population 11,000) in Kings county and see tanned, relaxed faces always ready u'ith a passing smile. As you turn on to 7th street (the town's main street), you notice new businesses, new store fronts, but not the hectic bustle and pressure of her tractsurrounded, throbbing neighbors.

Steve Ross likes it this way. So did his father and grandfather. And that's rvhy the three of them, in succession, have had the time of their lives running Hanford's Central Lumber Company, the first and only independent builders' supply outfit in tor,vn, reports "This Earth," Oakland, California, magazine of the Henry J. Kaiser enterprises.

This is just the way Ross likes it progress, but with plenty of time left over for pack trips into the nearby Sierra Nevadas, and long weekends at his mountain-surrounded Shaver Lake cabin with his family.

Steve Ross, together with his paternal predecessors, has probably put as much into Hanford's sturdy development as anybody in town. Ever since his grandfather, John Ross, sold his first lumber and cement in 1896 (five years before the town was organized), Central Lumber's materials have been piling and pouring into Hanford, Lemore and nearby areas. Fifteen schools in the area, a like number of cotton gins, a 100-unit cotton camp, five grain elevators, the Hanford Elks club, National Guard armory, sewer fnlm-sysn the city's curbs-had their origins in the lumberyard's hoppers, lumber piles and oak-paneled office.

With his 22 helpers, Ross has supplied a sizable hunk of Hanford's ($1 million a year) growth. He's also been supplying builders with Permanente cement since 1945. And with Kings county producing farm products like cotton, hay, grapes, livestock, apricots and peaches at the rate of $72,000,000 and upwards annually, a lot of Central Lumber Company's business comes from the farmers. Ross's average delivery run, in fact, is 12 miles out into the valley.

And, like Hanford itself, there are signs of progress around the lumberyard: a new 7,600-square foot hardware store just a block ofi 7th, a new warehouse in back of the main building, and a thriving ready-mix plant across the street, next to the Southern Pacific tracks.

Redwood Wqter Mqins Give Woy

Costa Mesa, Calif.-One of the Southland's oldest type of domestic water systems, a network of mains made of Redwood staves held together with steel bands, will give way to a $300,000 modernization here. The old wooden pipes, installed in 1919, are still in good condition and serve 700 Costa Mesa homes. Picture a l}-inch wooden barrel about two miles long, ,carrying water beneath the surface, and you get an idea of what the mains are like.

John Soner, Jr. fo Philippines

A. J. "Gus" Russell, Santa Fe Lumber Company, announces that John Saner has taken a temporary leave of absence from Santa Fe effective January 1. Saner has for many years been interested in a cocoanut plantation in the Philippine Islands, and has taken the leave of absence to visit his interests there. He will be accompanied on the trip by his wife and they plan to be back in San Francisco sometirne during spring of 1955.