Northern Pine Lumbermen: A Study in Origins and Migrations

THE work of converting the undeveloped forest resources of the Lake States into usable forms absorbed the energies of thousands of individual entrepreneurs. Their combined activity was scarcely able to meet the insatiable demand from the growing number of settlements that dotted the Midwestern prairies and from villages throughout the nation that were growing into towns or mushrooming into major cities. A universal building material was indispensable during a time of rapid economic expansion. Moreover, in the prevailing Age of Wood, white pine lumber, of the finest quality and incredibly low in price, was fortuitously available in abundance. The present inquiry concerns the nature of the men whose enterprise was a vital factor in creating our civilization: their origins, training, and experience, their character and outlook, their migrations, and the pattern of their rise as business leaders. The first significant fact concerning the leading northern pine lumbermen is that there were so many of them of approximately equal rank. Instead of a handful of men dominating an industry, one finds a profusion of partnerships and coalitions of partnerships amid a general environment of intense competition. A few perhaps gained more prominence than their fellows by reason of political activity, as did Isaac Stephenson, Philetus Sawyer, and General Alger; or acquired more timberlands than most and turned art collector, as did T. B. Walker.' Although nearly all leading lumbermen were identified with a