Cfay Brown & Company Starts New Mill at Fortun€r Calif.

The latest sawmill operation of importance to start cutting lumber in California, is the Swedish gang sawmill just completed by Clay Brown & Company, at Fortuna, Humboldt County, California. The mill made its first run late in January, operating on an eight hour shift. It is expected that within a few months a second shift will be added. The single shift output of the new mill is about 75,000 feet daily, and the plant employs about fifty men all told.

The new plant is located on a forty-acre site just a mile and one half south of the center of the town of Fortuna. Work started last August on the clearing of the site, so no time has been lost in getting this excellent mill built and in operation. Actual construction of the plant was in the hands of Industrial Engineers & Contractors Inc., of Tacoma, Washington, and most of the machinery and equipment came from the Mill Engineering & Supply Cornpany, of Seattle, which latter ,concern has pioneered the Swedish type gangsaw mill throughout the United States.

Other suppliers of machinery and equipment for the mill were the Brizard-Matthews Machinery Company, and the Eureka Boiler Works, both of Eureka, California.

The plant consists of an l8-acre log pond with special ramp for unloading logs, the sawmill proper equipped with a big Swedish gang and a regulation edger and trimmer, a modernly equipped planing mill capable of handling the entire double shift output of the sawmill, and a temporary storage yard for lumber awaiting shipment. The Swedish gang can handle logs up to 33 inches in thickness. The logs come into the mill on a regulation log deck, and on leaving the mill the lumber goes through the planing mill, and is then shipped green to market. No seasoning will be done

' at this plant. There is a big and modern refuse burner adjacent to the sawmill proper.

The mill cuts Fir timber, and the entire product will be marketed through the Los Angeles office of Clay Brown & Company, located at 5670 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles 36, phone WEbster 34405.

The Los Angeles office is in charge of Clarence Hill, executive vice president of the company. The general offices of Clay Brown & Company are located in Portland, Oregon, where Mr. Brown, president and high mogul of the company, makes his headquarters. C. W. Booth, of Portland, is secretary-treasurer.

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