The Upson Company and Western Hardwood Lumber Comptny

Join Handg in the Merchandising of Upson Laminated Panels

Separatcd though they are by the span of a cohtinent, the Western Hardwood I-umber Company of l-os Angeles, and The Upson Company of I.ockptlrt, N. Y., are characterized by many striking points of similarity.

Iloth firms had modest beginnings in the first decade of the present century and both have prospered and grown through the past half-century ttnder the same managements that established thent so many years ago.

Today, the interests of the two firms are closely associated. From the plant of The Upson Company, large producers of larninated wood fibre wall and ceiling panels, in Lockport, N. Y., nritny thtlttsau<ls of fect of these panels are constantly en rottte to thc large lvarehouses of the Western Hardlvood Lumber Cornpany in I-os Angeles, from rvhicl-r they are distribute<l to hundreds of Upson dealers throughout the western Unitcd States.

It was the genius of the late D. J. Cahill that created the organization that is, today, the Western Hardwood I-umber Company, one of the largest rvholesale lumber operations in the country.

In 1906, Mr. Cahill arrived in I-os Angeles from Denver, Colorado, where he had been engaged in the wholesale hardwood lumber business. He bought an interest in a small, struggling lumber yard in Los Angeles and proceeded to build it up. Eventually, he acquired ownership of the business rvhich today is knowrr as the Western Hardrvood Lumber ComPany.

It was four years later, in 1910, that tu'o brothers, Charles A. Upson and W. Harrison Upson, Jr.-thousands of miles away on the Niagara Frontier in Western Nelv York State -set about the organization, also in a modest way, of The Upson Company.

Both brothers had been associated with a large technical paper company in Western New York following their graduation from Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania.

After turning a previous deficit into a profit and achieving a notable success in that company, they conceived the idea of establishing a plant for the manufacture of more

<lepenclable rvallboard than rvas being made at that time. Their first plant was in three or four scattered buildings where a woolen mill had once been located, and with only 16,000 square feet of floor space. Completely new wallboard-making equipment was installed, much of which had been designed especially for the manufacture of Upson IJoard. For months after the company was incorporated, no attempt rvas made to market the product until it had been perfected.

Across the nation, in Los Angeles, Mr. Cahill had been making a search of the world for commercial hardwoods to supply the varied and gror,ving demands in Southern California. The best hardwoods were brougl-rt from the Orient and other parts of the world and these logs and timbers rvere sawed up at a hardwood sawmill operated by Western Hardu'ood Lumber Company at Los Angeles Harbor. To them was added a supply of all the useful American woods.

Gradually, a large wholesale lumber yard developed. A complete planing mill was established, together with a battery of six dry kilns, a veneer mill, a green bending oak