Three enterprising men – William C. Wheeler, D. D. Clarke, and George R. Osgood – capitalized on Tacoma's economic boom in the late 1880s when they built a wood-products manufacturing plant on the Commencement Bay tide flats. Incorporated on June 13, 1889, The Wheeler Osgood Company became one of the largest manufacturers of doors, window sash, ornamental wood trim, and paneling on the West Coast. In the ensuing six-plus decades before its demise in the 1950s, Wheeler Osgood withstood fires, economic setbacks, and legal challenges while producing a range of industry-leading products. Its legacy is seen in historic homes and other century-old buildings still standing today.
Founded on the Flats
William C. Wheeler, a retiree who had worked in the sash and door business more 20 years, moved from Dubuque, Iowa, to Tacoma in 1889, a year after the Northern Pacific Railroad completed its tunnel through Stampede Pass. With Puget Sound now linked by rail to the Midwestern United States, Wheeler met another Iowan, George R. Osgood (1840-1934), who had come west in 1887 and also was versed in the sash and door business. Seeing an opportunity as Tacoma started to boom, the men decided to start their own company, bringing D. D. Clarke of Tacoma in as their third trustee.
At the same time, the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company, founded in 1888 in concert with the Northern Pacific Railroad, was building a massive mill on the Tacoma tide flats. At its peak, St. Paul & Tacoma would control 90 square miles of standing timber in Pierce County and mill billions of board feet of lumber in Tacoma. When St. Paul & Tacoma executives Henry Hewitt Jr. and George Brown learned that Wheeler and Osgood were looking for a site for their wood-products company, they sold land on the flats adjacent to their mill to the Iowans for $1. Thus began a relationship between the two companies that would last for more than half a century.
Wheeler, Osgood & Company was incorporated on June 13, 1889, with $75,000 of capital stock at $500 per share. Incorporation documents note that the company was formed "to carry on the manufacture and sale of lumber in its various forms, including sash, doors, blinds and kindred work, furniture and wooden ware, the sawing and planing of lumber and everything connected with the manufacture and sale of lumber, and to purchase and sell timber and timber lands, and do any and all kinds of business allowed to Corporations, as provided for under the laws of Washington Territory" (The Mill on the Boot ..., 83). After documents were signed, the project turned to wood, iron, and steel construction as Wheeler Osgood’s mill took shape on the tide flats. Wheeler Osgood would grow rapidly, and by 1893 it employed 150 workers in a 29,500-square-foot manufacturing plant.
Two of Osgood's sons, George J. Osgood (1868-1955) and Harry Osgood (1867-1945) were early employees, as were the Ripley brothers, William (d. 1893) and Thomas (1865-1956). William, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the company's first superintendent in charge of mill operations and machinery. Thomas, a Yale man, followed his brother to Tacoma in 1890, securing a management job after their father invested $10,000 in the company. After William died suddenly in 1893, Thomas, who had been involved in Wheeler Osgood's sales department, took on greater responsibility as the company's East Coast-based general manager.
Thomas's first stint in Tacoma was brief, from 1890 to 1893, but eventful. He wrote about it in his manuscript Green Timber, published in 1968 by the Washington State Historical Society. Arriving in Tacoma, Thomas Ripley observed a town wholly dependent on timber:
"It was a wooden city that I looked out upon the next morning, with the forest which gave it birth still keeping its inviolate secrets, its greenery pressing in upon it from all sides, but with no blade of green within. The wooden streets were flanked by sidewalks built up on wooden stilts on the downhill side. The houses on the upside were reached by steps, so many and so steep that going home seemed hardly worth the effort. The foundations were of wood – cedar, durable through the ages – supporting the riot of wooden shingles, wooden rustic, and more than seven wooden gables" (Green Timber, 29).
Surviving the Panic
Wheeler Osgood grew quickly, securing large and small contracts to produce interior furnishings, porch columns, transom windows, trim, spindles, and ornate entry doors with stained, leaded, etched, or beveled glass. It made staircase railing, double-hung double-sash windows, and ornate, hand-carved wood trim for commercial properties such as the Tacoma Hotel overlooking Commencement Bay. Young Tom Ripley, during his introduction to the intricacies, machineries, processes, and inner workings of his new employer, was especially impressed by the company’s master wood carver: "Upstairs, Otto, the carver, was at work on a monstrous oak newel post for the grand staircase for the new county courthouse. Otto’s creative urge found vent in every form of ornate design he could find in the Grinling Gibbons book" (Green Timber ..., 24).
Just as business was beginning to flourish, the financial Panic of 1893 rattled the Northwest. Tacoma was hit especially hard. When Wheeler Osgood's bank failed, Thomas Ripley pulled together all of the company's cash and with $267 opened a new account with Pacific National Bank and secured a line of credit for $10,000. The business climate during the Panic was brutal; only four of Tacoma’s 21 banks survived into 1894. Many Tacoma businesses failed as bills went unpaid and Eastern capital evaporated. The Northern Pacific Railroad, Tacoma’s expected partner in a brighter future, went bankrupt.
Adding to Tom Ripley's unrest, his brother William died in 1893, after which Thomas moved back to the East Coast. He spent endless hours trying to find buyers for Wheeler Osgood products, particularly cedar doors. Eventually he found a jobber (middleman) in Boston, though the man had never heard of doors made from cedar. The jobber told Ripley he must first educate the market, starting with homeowners, about the qualities of cedar doors. Ripley called on an old classmate, Reverend J. Franklin Carter, ministering his first congregation, which included a builder. Ripley explained the wonders of cedar and the builder introduced him to a lumberyard owner. Ripley gave this lumber retailer such a good deal that the first carload of cedar doors would soon travel from Tacoma to the Atlantic.
Wheeler Osgood's luck was thus beginning to turn when a man from South Africa contacted Ripley to buy doors. How many he wasn’t sure, but he had a concession and a blank check from South African leader Oom Paul Kruger. New to ordering doors, the South African visitor deferred to Ripley as to what sizes and how many.
Ripley not only was Wheeler Osgood's chief salesman during this time, he became its chief bill collector. The situation at one point was so dire that Wheeler Osgood filed a mechanics lien against the Everett Land Company and its contractor for $756.72 for failure to pay for materials used in construction of three-story hotel in Everett. At the same time, Ripley was traveling far and wide trying to sell products. His persistence would pay off: "Over the next 10 years, Ripley established a national market for the company’s quality products, manufactured from cedar and Douglas fir, and by 1902 Wheeler Osgood had become one of the largest sash and door manufacturers on the West Coast" (McClary).
From the Ashes
Wheeler Osgood rode out the 1890s, keeping as many employees working as it could during the recession. The regional economy snapped back to life in 1897 after the steamer Portland arrived in Seattle carrying 68 Klondike miners and nearly a million dollars in gold, and by 1902 Wheeler Osgood was thriving. But on September 25, 1902, fire struck the mill, as it had so many other West Coast lumber manufacturers. The estimated loss was more than $150,000, and some 285 men were thrown out of work.
Determined to rebuild, the principals reorganized and reincorporated as The Wheeler Osgood Company. In the executive suite, William C. Wheeler would be president and Thomas Ripley would return to Tacoma to be second in command. According to Green Timber, "Tom returned to Tacoma and assumed the company's first vice-presidency and the general managership. He rebuilt the plant, broadened the business, and eventually became president of a most prosperous company" (Green Timber, 14).
With a Grinell Automatic Sprinkler and Alarm system installed in their new plant, Wheeler Osgood was back running at full capacity by May 1904. In a statement highlighting its new mill complex and improving business conditions, Wheeler Osgood reported in July 1905 that it was at running full capacity and had produced 15,000 more doors in the first five months of 1905 compared to the first five months of 1904. Business was even better in 1906, Wheeler Osgood boasting that it could produce 1,400 doors per 10-hour day if it made only stock doors.
Wheeler Osgood scored a high-profile job with the Northern Pacific when the railroad decided to upgrade its wooden depot in Chehalis to a modern, mission-revival red brick depot. Built over the years of 1911-1912, the new depot measured 38 by 259 feet. Many of the construction materials were sourced locally, including Denny-Renton Clay Company red brick, Tenino sandstone trim, and windows, sash, doors, and other interior furnishings from Wheeler Osgood.
Plywood Pioneers
In 1911, with Ripley now serving as president, Wheeler Osgood jumped into the three-ply veneer-panel business ahead of the rest of the Pacific Coast industry. Within a year, production of this new product grew to 25,000 square feet daily. At the time, Douglas fir was replacing Western red cedar for many application due to its strength and greater availability, and one of the hallmarks of Wheeler Osgood was innovation with new materials and products. Among these were Laminex Douglas fir doors, produced by laminating crosswise Douglas fir pieces to produce a warp-resistant door. The company was so sure of this door, it had the University of Washington Forestry Products Laboratory test it by submerging the door for 24 hours. According to historian Daryl McClary:
"In 1918, The Wheeler Osgood Company decided to limit its production to plywood and to its Laminex-brand doors and discontinued all other millwork. The door-manufacturing plant was completely renovated and was soon producing 10,000 doors per day. By 1927, the company was the largest door manufacturer in the world. The plant covered 14 acres, from St. Paul Avenue to the City Waterway, and employed some 1,500 workers. Most of the plywood the company produced was used to make doors, but during the 1920s plywood manufacturing grew from a sideline into an industry in its own right. A lucrative world market emerged, and soon several West Coast mills were making plywood" (McClary).
In addition, Wheeler Osgood operated its own logging camps in Snohomish County and later Skamania County, and also bought logs from others. Near the end of the company's life, it sold off its logging interests. In 1949, for example, it sold a complete logging outfit in Skamania County to a couple named Hegewald. This outfit included LeTourneau, RD-7, and D-7 Caterpillars; two Titan chainsaws; logging arches; International HD-14 caterpillars; Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge panel and pickup trucks; fire equipment; welder; Carco logging arch; a boom boat; a Lidgerwood gas donkey; another gas donkey; a 600-gallon diesel fuel tank, and more. In short, a complete logging outfit including a rock crusher and grader for constructing roads for logging trucks.
Changes
Various Wheeler Osgood executives moved away from Tacoma in the 1920s as Wheeler Osgood expanded its business. Harry Osgood, son of the co-founder, moved to Spokane to cover the Inland Empire and Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. Robert S. Osgood, a grandson, moved to Los Angles to make sales to Southern California and the Southwest. Other employees moved to San Francisco. Lee Duvall managed Northeastern sales from an office in New York.
In mid-1929, as the stock market boomed and mergers flourished, Wheeler Osgood merged with the Oregon-based Nicolai Door Company. The new officers included second-generation owners George J. Osgood, president, and W. C. Wheeler Jr., secretary. E. J. Calloway and Harry T. Nicolai were vice presidents, and N. O. Cruver was treasurer. But the ink was scarcely dry on the merger agreement when the stock market crashed. For Wheeler Osgood, the fallout was dire. The Nicolai door plant in Portland was soon shuttered, and by 1932, Wheeler Osgood's Tacoma plant had been closed with the exception of the Philippine hardwood department. By 1934, Wheeler Osgood was delinquent on bank loans and delinquent with its bond and mortgage holders, and even though there was improvement in the plywood and door markets, it was decided to form a new corporation – the Wheeler Osgood Sale Corporation – as part of a financial restructuring that included bank credits and a five-year management and sales contract with the existing company. The door and plywood plants were restarted. Ralph Brindley oversaw production.
More Fires
Just as Wheeler Osgood was crawling out of the Depression, fire again struck the plant in 1935. Started in one of the veneer dryers, the blaze was contained to the veneer department thanks to 75 employees and 100 firefighters who fought it. And in 1942, the plywood section of the plant sustained $100,000 in fire damage but was immediately rebuilt for the war effort.
The sales company was reorganized in 1939, merging back into the Wheeler Osgood Company, and the Nicolai operation in Portland was returned to Harry Nicolai. Three men – Gene Calloway, Dan J. Young, and Norman O. Cruver – served as Wheeler Osgood's vice president and general manager during the years from 1939 to 1947, when a new corporation – Cruver, MacArthur and Phillips – purchased control of Wheeler Osgood. Later in 1947, Wheeler Osgood merged with the Fir Manufacturing Company of Myrtle Creek, Oregon, where a new sawmill and plywood plant were under construction, and where Fir Manufacturing Co. partner Ed Sund had located and secured a block of timber. Another Fir Manufacturing partner, J. H. "Henry" Gonyea, would become president of Wheeler Osgood, elected to that post in 1950, a year before Wheeler Osgood was shuttered for good.
Legacy
Gonyea reasoned that Wheeler Osgood's plant was aging into obsolescence when he decided to liquidate the company’s assets and close the doors in November 1951. Wheeler Osgood left an enduring legacy in Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest. It was one of the few big lumber plants to survive the turbulent 1890s and take advantage of the growing lumber markets regionally and globally. No doubt thousands of its doors, windows, and ornate wood trim still exist in various parts of the world. Wheeler Osgood withstood volatile lumber-business conditions for more than 60 years while coming up with innovative new products maximizing the desirable characteristics of red cedar, Douglas fir, and specialty woods such as oak and mahogany.
It can be said that Thomas Ripley, Yale classmate of Gifford Pinchot, grew up with and grew Wheeler Osgood in Tacoma. His writings in Green Timber recount rough days as the City of Destiny grew from muddy streets to the Lumber Capital of the World. The manuscript makes for rousing reading. In it, Ripley advocates tirelessly for his adopted hometown. Of the challenges faced during and after the Panic of 1893, he writes:
"The word boom had disappeared from our vocabulary. While the population was melting before our eyes like snow before a Chinook wind, we talked bravely of 'solid, substantial growth.' But you couldn't make money on talk. If you had the money, you might take a flyer on Everett, up the Sound, where they were touching off a boom that might be all right – till it exploded. And there was Fairhaven, all blueprinted up – if you had the price. Seattle? Unh unh! A cultus lot of people and a cultus town, headed for the skids. Seattle, indeed! Trying to tag our mountain with the name of an unknown admiral – a British one at that. No, better stick to Tacoma" (Green Timber, 125).
Postscript
Lawsuits came fast and furious after Wheeler Osgood was shuttered. A former stockholder sued Gonyea in 1953, alleging that the company "was folded while it was still making money to further Gonyea's private gains in connection with a competing Oregon firm" ("Stockholder Sues ..."). More lawsuits followed in 1954. Meanwhile, Wheeler Osgood's inventory of machinery and equipment, said to be worth $6 million, was sold at auction in 1952. The plant then sat mostly vacant until 1959, when a $300,000 fire swept through several buildings and sent four Tacoma firefighters to the hospital.
While Wheeler Osgood is long gone, some remnants remain. Chief among them is the Osgood Residence, completed in 1896, which still stands at 407 North E Street. The home itself has undergone several renovations over the years; it even served as an apartment house in the middle of the twentieth century. According to a nomination to the Tacoma Register of Historic Places:
"The house represents early development patterns by Tacoma's industrial tycoons as they built large mansions as their economic fortunes rapidly expanded. The original owner of the structure, George R. Osgood, founder of the Wheeler, Osgood & Company, was one of these economic tycoons" ("Tacoma Register ...").
