A' B. Johnson Prominent Figure in Lumber Business For Over Haff a Century

Francisco in 1888 tp sell their lumber. On January l, 1889, he became a junior partner with Wilson Brothers, and the firm name was changed to Wilson Bros. & Co., continuing until 1918 when the partnership was dissolved.

In l92I Mr. Johnson organized the A. B. Johnson Lumber Co., in San Francisco, a partnership consisting of his wife, his son, A. B. (Bert) Johnson, Jr., and himself.

Wilson Bros. & Co. established a retail yard at 5th and Channel Streets, San Francisco, and operated it until 1917, when they closed it out. This was on the site now occupied by Rolando Lumber Co. Every yard that was in operation in 1891 in San Francisco is now out of business, liquidated or retired.

A. B. Johnson, one of the best known and respected lumber and shipping men in the United States, and the oldest man in the Douglas Fir industry in San Francisco, is still active and can be found every day at the office of his company, A. B. Johnson Lumber Company, in the Fife Building, 1 Drumm Street.

A real pioneer, Mr. Johnson came to portland as a young man on March 1, 1885, from Minnesbta, where he was raised on a farm. His father and mother came from Sweden and settled in Minnesota in 1852. His first job in Portland was driving a lumber team, but after three months of this work he started clerking in the retail lumber yard of Wilson Brothers. He had been a bookkeeper in a bank in Minnesota for 18 months before coming West. Mr. Johnson recalls that all finish lumber sold in the Northwest in those days was Red Cedar.

In the fall of 1886 he went to Gray's Harbor with C. R. Wilson, elder of the two brothers, and worked there while Wilson Brothers built their mill at Aberdeen. After the mill was finished and in operation this firm sent him to San fn order to have their own transportation for their lumber Wilson Bros. & Co. decided in 1890 to build the schooner Chas. R. Wilson, a three-masted sailing ship that carried 500,000 feet of lumber. Mr. Tohnson superintended the construction and did a good job, for the ship is still in operation in the codfishing trade. He had six sailing vessels built during those days up to 1898, u'hen steam vessels began to be used. Between 1898 and 1926 Wilson Brothers and A. B. Johnson Lumber Co. built seven steamers. The Esther Johnson, built by Mr. Johnson, was the last wooden steamer constructed on the Pacific Coast. Later his company bought tr.vo coasting steamers.

When he went to Grays Harbor from Portland in 1886 Mr. Johnson says the journey took 3l days, by stage and railroad. Wilson Brothers' sawmill was the fourth mill built at Grays Hdrbor, and is now the oldest sawmill in the Douglas Fir region with the exception of the Port Gamble mill of Pope & Talbot.

Mr. Johnson married Miss Mariett Cartwright, a native daughter of San Francisco, in October, 1891. They had two children, A. B. Johnson, Jr., and Mrs. McRae, who is the wife of a prominent San Francisco physician, and four grandchildren. Mrs. Johnson passed away in May, 194O, after they had been happily married for 49 years and eight months.

The A. B. Johnson Lumber Co. still represents the Wilson Brothers' mill, also the Grays Harbor Lumber Co. of Hoquiam and the E. C. Miller Cedar Lumber Co. of Aberdeen.

Port (lrford Cedar

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