Cascade Timber Consulting at the end of August celebrated the 100th year of the 1917 Trust established for members of the Hill Family.
The Trust has ownership and management responsibilities of more than 100,000 acres of timberlands in east Linn County, conducted locally by CTC.
CTC President Dave Furtwangler said the event was celebrated during an annual business meeting, which drew about two dozen family members and advisers from Minnesota during the week of Aug. 20. They also visited the Oregon Garden Rediscovery Forest, which is supported by the Hill family.
They viewed the eclipse locally and went on a tour of a D&S Logging job site, where Hill Family timber was being harvested. They also got a demonstration from Matt Bostrom of a mastication machine, which is used locally to create fire trails and reduce fire risks by clearing underbrush.
Furtwangler noted that the Oregon Forest Resources Institute uses the Rediscovery Forest because of the organization’s “association and support for education of grade school through high school students and teachers in sound forest management.”
He said Sweet Home schools Supt. Tom Yahraes “joined us to learn more about what OFRI has to offer schools as he’s made a commitment to developing a natural resources track.”
The Hill family has been involved in the Sweet Home area since 1910, when Louis W. Hill of St. Paul, Minn., with a partner, purchased land that had been set aside by an 1866 act of Congress, to construct a wagon road, forming the Oregon and Western Colonization Company to manage the property. Hill acquired sole ownership of the western portion of the lands in 1917 and formed a trust for his children and wife, called the 1917 Trust.
Later he formed what is now known as the Hill Family Foundation and the Northwest Area Foundation.
During World War II, timber was needed for the war effort and the Hill Timber Properties began supplying that need. Timber Service Company was created in 1942 to manage the harvest for the Trust. This was followed by long term harvesting arrangement with Willamette Valley Lumber Company which later became Willamette Industries.
In 1945 Timber Service Company built an office at 1575 Main, where the Chamber of Commerce is located today.
Over the years, local management of the Hill Timber has been led by individuals including Gene Ellis, Jack Barringer, Larry Blem and, most recently, Dave Furtwangler, all of whom worked their way up through the company, which was variously named Barringer and Associates, and then Cascade Timber Consulting along the way.
CTC purchased the former Mennonite church building site in the Midway area and, in 1983, a new office building was constructed for the firm at 3210 Highway 20.
“Lots of jobs, lots of contractor jobs, lots of logging jobs have happened as result of activities on (Hill family) property,” said Furtwangler, who started with CTC in 1985.