NORTHERN LUMBER COMPANY (CLOQUET, MINN.):

The Northern Lumber Company began in 1880 when the C. N. Nelson Lumber Company (originally headquartered in Stillwater and Lakeland) constructed a lumber mill at Cloquet, having acquired a large timber tract in the area from the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad. In 1886 Charles N. Nelson moved his Lakeland mill operation to Cloquet, where it became known as the Upper Mill. In 1896 all lumber and related interests were sold for $1.9 million to Frederick Weyerhaeuser. He organized the Northern Lumber Company to receive the properties, which included 600 million feet of white pine stumpage, 2 lumber mills on the Knife River, a commissary, a hotel, the St. Louis River Boom and Improvement Company, and the Knife Falls Boom Corporation. Originally a Wisconsin corporation, the company was reorganized in 1911 under the laws of Minnesota.

With the organization of the Northern Lumber Company, Cloquet became a distinct Weyerhaeuser town, since Weyerhaeuser interests (Cloquet Lumber Company) in Cloquet before then had been rather minor. Rudolph M. Weyerhaeuser was selected to manage the important new properties, and under the Weyerhaeuser policy of aggressive timberland acquisition the company came to hold over 915 million feet of stumpage in 1908. During the company's 1901-1917 heyday it shipped an annual average of about 90 million board feet of lumber. In 1902 the company acquired a joint interest in the Johnson-Wentworth Company in partnership with the Cloquet Lumber Company.

In October, 1918, the company's two mill plants, its shop and barn, and 70 million board feet of lumber burned in the disastrous Cloquet fire. Following the blaze the company was operated much more cooperatively with the Cloquet and Johnson-Wentworth companies. Its last major lumber shipment went out in 1919, and in 1928 the company's operations, along with those of the Cloquet and Johnson-Wentworth companies, were transferred to the Northwest Paper Company (Cloquet), the remaining major Weyerhaeuser interest in Minnesota, and were operated as its lumber division. The company maintained a legal existence until its dissolution in 1945.

The Northwest Paper Company (incorporated in 1898) was organized by Weyerhaeuser interests as a West Virginia corporation (capitalization: $150,000) and was reincorporated in 1910 as a Minnesota company (capitalization: $1 million). It began operations with four small pulp grinders and a paper machine, added another paper machine and three more grinders the following year, and built a second mill at Knife Falls in 1903. In 1914 it constructed the North Star Mill in Cloquet to supply sulphite pulp for book paper, and in 1915 it built the Frederick Paper Mill in Brainerd. During this period it also purchased the Cloquet Tie and Post Company to increase its pulpwood supply and constructed a large new plant at Cloquet in 1918. After 1928 the company was the preeminent Weyerhaeuser operation in Minnesota.

The Eastern Lumber Company (incorporated in May 1907) was formed, with its headquarters in Tonawanda, New York, to serve as the eastern lumber distribution center for the Northern and Cloquet companies, by which it was jointly owned and controlled. It was apparently dissolved in 1937, along with the Johnson-Wentworth Company.

The St. Louis River Dam and Improvement Company (incorporated in November 1889) was organized by the C. N. Nelson Lumber Company to build dams and make other improvements on the Knife River to facilitate the movement of logs to the mills. It became a Northern Lumber Company subsidiary in 1896, and the Cloquet Lumber Company acquired a half interest in 1900 for $30,000. The corporation was dissolved in October, 1925.

The St. Louis Power and Improvement Corporation was incorporated in April, 1901, by Weyerhaeuser interests to construct dams and other facilities on the St. Louis River and its tributaries in order to generate water power. In June, 1901, it purchased several lots from the Northern Lumber Company and the Knife Falls Dam from the Knife Falls Boom Corporation. Its assets were divested throughout the 1940s and it was finally disincorporated in 1951.

The Mesabe Southern Railway Company (incorporated in 1895) was organized by the C. N. Nelson Lumber Company to build and operate a logging railroad north from Cloquet. It was transferred to the Northern Lumber Company in 1896 and operated 28 miles of main line and 12 miles of spurs northwest of Cloquet, on which it annually hauled 20 to 45 million feet of logs to the St. Louis River. The Cloquet Lumber Company acquired a half interest in 1904.

The Seine River Lumber Company, Ltd. (incorporated in September, 1907), was chartered at Toronto by a provisional group of Ontario residents and in November it came under the control of three prominent American lumbermen: Edward Hines (Chicago), Wirt H. Cook (Duluth), and William O'Brien (St. Paul) with whom it made a timber purchase agreement. In December, 1908, the company was conveyed to the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, a Weyerhaeuser interest, which processed its timber holdings. All active corporate affairs were terminated by 1932.

The Minnesota Land and Construction Company (incorporated in August 1901) was organized for the general purpose of railroad and related construction and to hold land and securities. The company constructed 27 miles of main line, plus sidings and logging spurs, for the Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway during 1901-1903. The company came under the control of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company in 1905. The corporation expired in August, 1931.

The Northern Water Power Company (incorporated in May 1901) was organized by Robert L. McCormick to construct and manage waterpower facilities on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The company constructed a dam and power facilities at Brainerd that it operated until January, 1934, at which time all its assets were conveyed to the Northwest Paper Company. It maintained a legal existence until its charter expired in 1960.

The Companies Store, Inc. (incorporated in October 1907) was organized by the Cloquet Weyerhaeuser interests and was jointly owned by the Northern and Cloquet Lumber companies. Its purpose was to provide centralized general merchandising and lumber product sales facilities to serve the Cloquet firms, since it was felt that a single store serving all related companies could command greater volume and thereby secure certain economies. The store was destroyed in the October, 1918, fire and was never revived. It was officially dissolved in February, 1926.

The Ranier Townsite Company (incorporated in October 1906) was organized to acquire land for and to develop a townsite in Koochiching County to be known as Ranier. In July, 1907, it purchased lots from the Minnesota Land and Construction Company in exchange for its entire capital stock issue of $50,000. R. M. Weyerhaeuser thereupon became a director. The corporation was dissolved by a charter amendment in March, 1932.

The Northland Power Company (incorporated in April 1905) was apparently organized on behalf of Weyerhaeuser interests which very soon assumed control. It existed to construct and manage waterpower and electrical supply sources in the Cloquet area. Pursuant to a June, 1905, resolution, all dams and related power facilities and rights at Cloquet and Knife Falls were leased to the Northwest Paper Company.

The Cloquet Tie and Post Company was jointly operated by the Cloquet and Northern Lumber companies to log and process their tamarack (railroad ties) and cedar (poles) stumpage so that the parent companies could concentrate on the more valuable white pine timber. All the company's buildings burned in the October, 1918, fire and the company was dissolved in 1929.

The Minnesota Northern Railway Company (incorporated in November 1910) was formed to construct and operate a logging railroad in St. Louis County, and was controlled by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company. The company was dissolved by amendment to its articles of incorporation in March, 1932.

The above information was obtained from the records; from the transcript of an oral history interview with Hugo Schlenk, an officer and director of the Northern Lumber Company and Northwest Paper Company, located in "Forest History Foundation, comp., Interviews, 1953-1957," Division of Archives and Manuscripts, Minnesota Historical Society; and from Ralph W. Hidy, Frank Ernest Hill, and Allan Nevins, Timber and Men: the Weyerhaeuser Story (New York: MacMillan, 1963).

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The records for all the companies mentioned above are rather incomplete. Some companies are strongly documented in minutes, stock records, and other secretary's and treasurer's records, but are very weakly documented in accounting records and other basic financial data; the reverse is sometimes also true. There is almost no correspondence for any company, and production, operating, and sales records are also infrequent. The researcher will also find significant temporal gaps in the existing series for most companies. Still, when taken together, the records provide a very valuable documentary picture of the functioning of the many Weyerhaeuser affiliates operating in the Cloquet area.

Box 1 contains all the unbound records arranged by company, and the remaining boxes contain the bound records, which are also arranged by company. The order in which the companies appear reflects the volume of records that are extant.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Northern Lumber Company (Cloquet, Minn.). Northern Lumber Company and Affiliated Companies Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 9066; 12,583; 13,085; 16,945

Processing Information:

Processed by: Dennis E. Meissner, March 1980; addition by David B. Peterson, December 2014.

Catalog ID number: 990017156710104294

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

General stores.

Logging -- Minnesota.

Logging railroads -- Minnesota.

Lumbering -- Minnesota.

Lumbering -- Saint Louis River (Minn. and Wis.)

Water-power -- Saint Louis River (Minn. and Wis.)

Organizations:

C.N. Nelson Lumber Company (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Cloquet Lumber Company (Cloquet, Minn.)

Cloquet Tie and Post Company (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Companies Store, Inc. (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Eastern Lumber Company (Tonawanda, N.Y.), author.

F. Weyerhaeuser and Company (Saint Paul, Minn.)

Johnson-Wentworth Company (Cloquet, Minn.)

Mesabe Southern Railway Company (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Minnesota Land and Construction Company (Duluth, Minn.), author.

Minnesota Northern Railway Company (Virginia, Minn.), author.

Northern Water Power Company (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Northwest Paper Company (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Ranier Townsite Company (Duluth, Minn.), author.

Seine River Lumber Co., Ltd. (Virginia, Minn), author.

St. Louis River Dam and Improvement Company (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

St. Louis River Power and Improvement Corp. (Cloquet, Minn.), author.

Virginia and Rainy Lake Logging Company.

Places:

Cloquet (Minn.)

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