On Jan. 18, 1900, Frederick Weyerhaeuser purchased 900,000 acres of Washington timberland from the Northern Pacific Railway. At the time it was the largest private land deal in American history.
The deal would go on to make Frederick, already a successful businessman in the timber industry, the eighth richest American and make the Weyerhaeuser Company the economic powerhouse it is today.
Born in Germany in 1834, Frederick came to the United States when he was 18 years old. He began working at a sawmill in Illinois and purchased it when the business failed during the Panic of 1857. His sawmill empire continued to grow and he later moved to St. Paul, Minnesota. There he lived near railroad builder James J. Hill, who later sold Frederick the 900,000 acres of Washington timberland (at just $6 an acre) that led to the Weyerhaeuser Company’s creation.
Two years after the purchase, the company established its first sawmill in Everett, Washington, and within a decade it had facilities across the state. In 1921, the company purchased surplus World War I-era steamships to ship lumber from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast, via the Panama Canal.
For years, the company supplied its sawmills with logs from its many acres of timberland. In 1941, the company opened the first certified tree farm in the nation in an effort to create a more sustainable crop of timber. After World War II, as thousands of Baby Boomers returned home and began laying down roots, Weyerhaeuser expanded rapidly across the country. In 1958, it grew overseas with operations in Venezuela, Malaysia and the Philippines. Five years later, it was publicly listed on the New York and Pacific stock exchanges.
As the company entered the 20th Century, it had operations on four continents bringing in billions of dollars every year to its shareholders. However, its biggest presence is still in the United States, specifically in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest.
“They’re one of the oldest wood product companies in the United States and they have an excellent reputation of successful forest management in Washington and Oregon, where they have some of the most productive forests it the world,” said Peter Kolb, the Montana State University Extension forestry specialist and an associate professor of forest ecology management at the University of Montana.