Three South ern California Lumber Firms lvlerge

IThe merger of three well-known Southern California t_qqt!:l and building mate,rial companies, creating a $7,500,000 concern, the largest deal of its kind that h1s been consummated in the Southwest, was announced on Friday evening, June 26, at a banquet at the Hotel Alexandria, Loi 4lg.l"_r, marking completion of negotiations by the L. W. Blinn Lumber Company, the Russ Lumber and Mill Company and the Patten & Davies Lumber Company. On July 1 these merged concerns take the name of Patten-Blinn-Lumber Company with general offices at 521 East Fifth Street, Los Angeles. Henry S. Patten is president of the new concern and C. G. Lynch, vice president.

Involved in the transaction are yards in more than thirty Southern California communitiesl planing mills and sasir and door mills in Los Angeles and San Diego; wharves and modern distributing facilities at Wilmington; offices at Phoenix, Ariz., where will be carried on the Arizona portion of the business built up by the Blinn company duiing the past fifty years.

All branch organizations will be maintained intact rvitl.r n_o change in their personn,el, according to Mr. patten. Negotiations leading up to the deal werJ conducted by C. G. Lynch for the Blinn and Russ interests and Henrv S. Patten for Patten & Davies.

The L. W. Blinn company is the oldest of the thnee merging companies, having been established in lgg0 in Tombstone, Ariz. For four of the five decades of this concern's growth in California and Arizona, C. G. Lynch has been identified with it. Since 1895 Mr. Lynch has'been its general manager. The Russ Lumber and Miil ComDanv was established in 1885 in San Diego and shortly thereifte-r established yards in the San Bernirdino Valley.

The Patten & Davies I-umber Company, the youngest of the tl-rree in the merger, was establisheh in Fasadina in 1894 and a ferv months thereafter opened a yard, in Los Angeles. Henry S. Patten became president in l9O4 and rrnder his guidance it has grown to be one of the largest distributors of lumlter and building material in South"ern California, operating more than thiriy lumber and building rnaterial yards rvithin a radius of thirty miles of Los AnI gel.es.

Amorrg properties of the new concern are the lumber clistributing plant at the Wilmington water front, where moclern mechanical equipment handles lumber from boats to cars ;_ modern dry kilns of large capacity; a sash and door mill at Twenty-sixth and Soto s[reet,- Los Angeles, and a large yard and mill at First and Island streets, San Diego.