Louisiana Pacific/Hammond Lumber Company Collection, 1871-1992

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Summary

Title:
Louisiana Pacific/Hammond Lumber Company Collection
Dates:
1871-1992
Creators:
Vance Redwood Lumber Company Hammond Lumber Company Hammond & Little River Redwood Company Hammond Redwood Lumber Company Georgia-Pacific Corporation Louisiana Pacific Corporation-Samoa Division
Abstract:
Extent:
14 map cabinets with approximately 3000 maps, plans and drawings; approximately 300 maps, plans and drawings on rolling tubes; 63 boxes of documents; one five-drawer file cabinet of vendor catalogues; one oversize flat file box of computer circuit diagrams.
Language:
Preferred citation:

Louisiana Pacific/Hammond Lumber Company Collection. Cal Poly Humboldt, Library Special Collections and Archives

Background

Scope and content:

This collection incorporates the original acquisition in 1997, along with subsequent donations through 2010. These documents span the company operations under various owners from 1871-1992, with the bulk of the material dating from 1893 to 1985. Seven official company names were used over the years and these may appear in full or as abbreviations on company documents, as listed in the table below. Although the Georgia Pacific Corporation had a written agreement to retain company documents on site, under subsequent owners the documents, in boxes and file cabinets, were moved from the Samoa Block company office. Materials in the original acquisition in 1997 were retrieved from a windowless 8 X 12 ft. portable metal building located within a structure adjacent to the roundhouse in the rail yard. Four large filing cabinets and six map filing cabinet units lined the walls, with boxes stacked on top, and one light bulb hung from the ceiling. Subsequent donations include materials in temporary containers or bundled with other materials of the same type or age. This comprehensive set of maps, plans and drawings includes a wide range of materials on paper and canvas, Cyanotypes, Diazotypes or negatives, Van Dyke prints or negatives, as well as pen and ink on drafting cloth or tracing paper, pencil on paper, photocopies, laser print or graphic lettering on Mylar, and lithographs. A table describing the contents of the six original map cabinets was created by student Aron Crowell in 1999. A selection of documents from these files was digitized and 84 documents were posted on Calisphere in 2005. A list of the contents of the original map drawers was begun by student Chris Haynes in 2007 and a detailed list of PDs was created by volunteer Les Cook in 2014.

Biographical / historical:

The Vance and Garwood Lumber Company was established in Eureka in 1856, by John Vance and Joseph S. Garwood of San Francisco. Garwood was primarily an investor and Vance assumed the role of manager until 1863, when Garwood drowned in a boat accident and he became sole owner. Vance expanded the operation along the Eureka waterfront until he passed away in 1892. Shortly afterward the mill burned down, which provided an opportunity for his heirs to construct a larger mill on the Samoa Peninsula, across the Bay. In 1900, the Vance Redwood Lumber Company was sold to multimillionaire industrialist A.B. Hammond. He began his lumber, railroad and mercantile career in Montana and had already acquired other operations in the Pacific Northwest, invested in lumber and railroads and developed the Columbia River Canneries. Hammond purchased mills and retail outlets in California and Oregon. He expanded his operations in Samoa with a modern new mill and expanded network of logging railroads. After seeing the lumber company towns in the Pacific Northwest, Hammond decided to construct a company owned worker community in Samoa. After WWII he created one of the largest lumber yards in the West in San Pedro, California, to serve the postwar building boom. Although the business headquarters of the company was in San Francisco, financial hub of Northern California, the operations headquarters remained in Samoa. The Hammond Lumber Company was sold to the Georgia Pacific Corporation in 1956, which moved the company headquarters to Portland, Oregon. As a result of a Federal Trade Commission order to Georgia Pacific to divest part of its plywood operations, the Louisiana Pacific Corporation was created in 1972 and received all of the local company holdings. The mill and town were sold in 1998 to a new company called Simpson-Samoa. In 2000, Simpson-Samoa reopened the pulp mill, which had closed in 1993, and sold the remainder of the site to the Samoa Pacific Group LLC. Most of the buildings on the mill site had been demolished. At that time, the town of Samoa was one of only two intact lumber company towns in northwestern California.

Acquisition information:
At the time that the bulk of this collection was acquired from the Louisiana Pacific Corporation in 1997, through the intervention of Sam Swanlund, lumber operations had ceased. Documents in this collection were originally on file at the company offices in the Samoa Block. Additional materials were contributed in 2006 and 2010 by former employees who had salvaged some of the discarded materials and by the current owners, the Samoa Pacific Group LLC. These include more than 100 maps, plans and drawings found in the Samoa Cookhouse and donated by Samoa-Pacific Corporation and the Danco Group; as well as legal files, photographs and public relations files, early survey handbooks and notes, property appraisals, and early maps and plans. Later acquisitions have all been incorporated into the Louisiana Pacific/Hammond Lumber Company Collection. See also the Thornburgh Timber Maps collection, last used at the Big Lagoon operations of this same company, circa 1900 through the 1970s.

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Finding aid created by Cal Poly Humboldt, Library Special Collections and Archives staff.
Date Prepared:
1871-1992
Date Encoded:
This finding aid was produced using Record Express for OAC5 on July 14, 2025, 2:55 p.m.

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research by appointment.

Terms of access:

Copyright has not been assigned to the Humboldt State University Library. To obtain permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Special Collections Librarian.

Preferred citation:

Louisiana Pacific/Hammond Lumber Company Collection. Cal Poly Humboldt, Library Special Collections and Archives

Location of this collection:
Third Floor, Room 303
1 Harpst Street
Arcata, CA 95521-8299, US
Contact:
(707) 826-3419
archives@humboldt.edu
Website