News Article, Large Sale is Reported

This 1906 Coos Bay Times article reports the sale of the Southern Oregon Company holdings to Minneapolis timber baron and Swedish immigrant Charles A. Smith. The Times reported that the purchase included “101,000 acres of valuable timber land.”

The consolidated ownership of Coos County’s rich forestland began in the early 20th century when companies used secretive agents and, often, fraudulent means to acquire inexpensive government land. Agents for Smith used dummy entrymen. Stephen Puter later admitted in court that he hired people to file land claims using the 1878 federal Timber and Stone Act. The claims were then turned over to the C.A. Smith Company. Puter wrote a tell-all book from prison titled, Looters of the Public Domain.

Timber companies soon depleted the timber supply along the Coos Bay coastline and surrounding estuaries. Smith moved his company to the interior and logged throughout the Coquille River watershed. Newly constructed logging railroads transported logs from there to Coos River sloughs, where they were floated to company lumber mills located along the bay. In 1916, new investors reorganized Smith’s financially stressed company into the Coos Bay Lumber Company.

Further Reading:
Robbins, William G. Landscapes of Promise : The Oregon Story 1800-1940. Seattle, Wash., 1997.

Robbins, William G. Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850-1986. Seattle, Wash., 1988.

Robbins, William G. “Timber Town: Market Economics in Coos Bay, Oregon, 1850 to the Present.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 75:4 , 1984: 146-55.

Written by Kathy Tucker, © Oregon Historical Society 2002.