#Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company

[rabbitcruiser]

Bend, OR (No. 5)

Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company was a lumber products company with large sawmills and significant land holdings in Minnesota, Florida, British Columbia, and Central Oregon. The company was formed in 1901 with its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Beginning in 1915, its main lumber production facility was in Bend, Oregon. For many years, its Bend sawmill was one of the largest lumber producers in the world. In 1969, the company created Brooks Resources to broaden its business base beyond timber production. Brooks-Scanlon's Bend sawmill was closed in 1994. Today, Brooks Resources is the only vestige of the company that is still in business.

Source: Wikipedia

[airmanisr]

Brooks-Scanlon 1, 2-6-2 by Steve Sloan Via Flickr: Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company 1, a 2-6-2, is at the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA, on a rainy morning, Monday, July 8, 2019. Reportedly Brooks-Scanlon Corporation 1 was built in 1914 by Baldwin as a 2-6-2, builders number 41649 for the Carpenter-O'Brien Lumber Company. The Carpenter-O'Brien Lumber Company was aquired by the Brooks-Scanlon Corporation. This locomotive changed hands several times ending up in the late 1950's at the Lee Tidewater Cypress company.

[rabbitcruiser]

Bend, OR (No. 6)

The Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company was formed in 1901 with its headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The founding partners were Michael J. Scanlon, Anson S. Brooks, Dwight F. Brooks, Lester R. Brooks, and Henry E. Gipson. The firm was originally capitalized with $500,000. The partners later increased their capital investment to $1,750,000.

Brooks-Scanlon’s first lumber production facility was located in Scanlon, Minnesota, a new company town located on the St. Louis River south of Cloquet, Minnesota. A month after the company was formed, construction of a large sawmill began. The Scanlon mill opened late in 1901, ready for winter production. The mill processed approximately 600,000 board feet (1,400 m3) per day.

The company quickly expanded its acquisition of standing timber to feed its mill operation. By 1903, the Cloquet sawmill was cutting 100,000,000 board feet (240,000 m3) of lumber per year. At the same time, the company was expanding its railroad logging operations.

Eventually, local timber resources became scarce and the company began looking for new timber resources outside Minnesota. The Brooks-Scanlon sawmill in Scanlon closed in 1909, after cutting 700,000,000 board feet (1,700,000 m3) of timber. That completely exhausted the supply of standing timber in the area around the mill. The company announced that the mill would be disassembled and shipped west.

Source: Wikipedia

[rabbitcruiser]

Bend, OR (No. 4)

The Old Mill District formerly housed two competing lumber mills. In 1916 the Shevlin-Hixon Lumber Company built a mill on the west bank of the Deschutes River and Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company built the "Mill A" complex on the east bank. For the next 78 years, the mills dominated Bend's economy, pumping money and business into the town. At their peak, the companies were two of the largest pine sawmills in the world, running around the clock, employing more than 2,000 workers each and turning out more than 500 million board feet of lumber a year.

The influx of mill workers ballooned the town's population. It jumped from 536 in 1910 to 5,414 in 1920, and by 1930, the city's population was 8,821.

After more than 20 years of non-stop logging, the forests in Central Oregon were becoming depleted. In 1937, the Bend Chamber of Commerce warned of economic disaster unless the mills started sustainable forestry. The mills ignored these warnings and continued producing at full capacity. By 1950, the forests' depletion led to the decline of Oregon's logging industry.

Brooks-Scanlon bought the Shevlin-Hixon mill in 1950 and closed it just four months later. The Brooks-Scanlon Mill A closed in 1983.

After the mills shut down, the site fell into ruin until William Smith Properties purchased the land in 1993 now known as the Old Mill District. Mill B continued to produce small amounts of lumber until 1993 when it also closed.

Source: Wikipedia