Sometime in 1960, an agreement was signed in Juneau between the U.S. Forest Service, Alaska officials and timber executives. Seated at the table, Alaska Lumber and Pulp Company founder Tadao Sasayama and Alaska Gov. Bill Egan participate in the signing.
Above, a Japanese worker leaves the Wrangell sawmill in 1953. The first load of primary manufactured timber bound for Japanese markets would leave Wrangell in 1955. Below, longshoremen load up a shipment of lumber at Wrangell's dockside in 1970.
Editor's note: Frank Roppel has been in the timber industry from 1956 to 2002, and a Wrangell resident since 1992. After graduating from high school in Ketchikan and receiving a degree from Oregon State University, he began full time employment for Ketchikan Pulp Company in 1959. Rising to sawmill manager, Roppel became the first president of Sealaska Timber in 1980, and served as executive vice president and general manager of Alaska Lumber and Pulp from 1984 until its closure.
At the advice of his wife, the late writer and historian Patricia Roppel, he had begun putting together a history of the local timber industry. The work went unpublished, and at the advice of a friend Frank has asked the Wrangell Sentinel to run his history. The paper is pleased to present the second of a three-part serialization of his work.
During the Second World War, products shifted from local-use lumber to filling government contracts for the military and its bases farther north. In addition, the mill was supplying spruce for aircraft-grade lumber for that industry. It was reported that the bulk of the aircraft spruce was going to Boeing.
After the war, the mill operated intermittently and changed hands several times. The fish box business declined, the government was no longer buying, and aluminum had almost totally replaced spruce for aircraft construction. In addition, transportation from the Puget Sound area had improved to the point that wood products were beginning to be imported to Southeast Alaska markets once exclusively supplied by local sawmills.
Several major events produced a "Golden Era" by providing export markets for the Wrangell sawmill. In 1947, an important change occurred in the availability of long-term timber supply contracts from the Tongass National Forest when President Harry Truman signed the Tongass Timber Act. This authorized the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to enter into 50-year timber sale contracts.
Prior to 1947, the USFS attempted to attract wood pulp-making operations to Southeast to utilize the large portion of the forests that were of poor quality. Several pulp manufacturers, such as Crown Zellerbach did extensive site and business research prior to 1947, but none were willing to build in Alaska due to the lack of a dependable long-term timber supply. This was needed to amortize the huge cost of building a pulp mill.
In 1951, the USFS let a 50-year contract to Ketchikan Pulp Company for harvest on Prince of Wales Island and around Ketchikan. In 1953, Alaska Lumber and Pulp Corporation, a Japanese-owned company, negotiated a 50-year contract for operations around Sitka. A year later, Pacific Northern Timber Company contracted for a 28-year supply of timber around Wrangell. Each of the contracts required the contractor to build pulp or chipping mills.
An unprecedented marketing opportunity coincided with the newly available long-term timber supply contracts. Japan was rebuilding after World War II. Some of its major forest lands on its northern island, Sakahlin, had been lost to Russia. The majority of its other forest lands on Japan's three main islands, Honshu, Kyushu and Hokkaido, had been severely depleted by over-harvesting to support the World War II war effort or were burned by U.S. bombing.
The "Cold War" between the U.S. and Russia was in full swing, and there were very cool relations between Russia and the United States. Russia had been a major log supplier to Japan before the Second World War. The U.S. military was administering Japan after the war and was not in favor of Japan doing business with Russia. Japan needed raw materials, and Alaska had trees. However, the USFS had a prohibition against trees being exported without first being manufactured. There was an obvious market for lumber if the Japanese market could be penetrated.
In approximately 1951, under the leadership of Tadao Sasayama – who had worked for General McArthur's staff in Tokyo from approximately 1945 to 1950 – Alaska Lumber and Pulp Company (ALP) was formed and became actively engaged in preparing to build a pulp mill at Sitka. It decided to start its business in Alaska with a sawmill operation. It leased and subsequently purchased the Wrangell sawmill from C. T. Takahashi, a Japanese businessman from Seattle. Takahashi had purchased the Wrangell mill in 1949 in a bankruptcy auction.
ALP rebuilt the mill and started sawing lumber in early 1955. It named the operation Wrangell Lumber Company (WLC) and its first manager was Chet Neill. The Wrangell Sentinel reported on January 28: "Promptly at 5 p.m. yesterday the [steam] whistle blew at the Wrangell Lumber Company sawmill which has been in test run production for a few weeks.... All other business in the community ceased for a few minutes while everybody listened. First time the sawmill whistle has sounded in quite a few years."
Wrangell's economy was assured once again.
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