Archives West Finding Aid

Shelton office train trip to Grisdale, Washington in August 1955. Includes a day trip to Grisdale via locomotive train, group tours to a logging site, and a communal meal.

A group of women costumed as train conductors perform, accompanied by accordionist. A series of locomotives with signage from the cities of Shelton, Montesano, Elma, and McCleary passes by. A conductor operates a steam locomotive. Also includes a ceremony with framed photographs presented to attendees. Topping of a spar tree.

Includes logging train, speakers standing in front of a locomotive addressing a crowd, the "Simpson Express Last Steam Trip" locomotive decorated with starred bunting, a conductor operating the train and performing maintenance, a locomotive ride in the snow, a steam shovel in operation, the dedication of The Tollie, a locomotive named after Mary Garrard Simpson (1853-1940), widow of Simpson Logging Company founder Solomon Simpson. Women staging a performance in train conductor costumes, and color footage of train tracks being cleared of snow. Also contains footage of a film crew, actors David Janssen and Joyce Taylor at work during the shooting of the film Ring of Fire. Ring of Fire footage contains shots of burning railroad cars falling from a collapsed bridge.

General management meeting at Alderbrook Inn in Union, Washington. Simpson President Hank Bacon, Chairman Bill Reed, and a representative from the American Management Association address managerial employees.

Operation of a wood veneer mill with close-ups of machinery.

Lumber industry trade show from 1960s. Contains various lumber show displays, Simpson Timber Company presentations, and crowd shots.

Scenes include logging, hauling timber, lumber mill activity, City of Shelton, and film storyboards.

Scenes with author Stewart Holbrook, author of books about the timber industry and railroads, talking about the Schafer Logging Company. Images of the covers of books written by Holbrook. Some scenes with sound and others silent.

Views of mill activity, rigging, logging, a brief interview with Mrs. Schafer of the Schafer Logging Company, film storyboards, hay harvesting and baling, and office scenes. Includes scenes from an unidentified film project.

Opens with fragment of an unidentified documentary about rail transport. Black and white footage includes helicopter landing and passenger pickup. Scenes from Simpson Research Center presentations and a Simpson Timber Asia Trade Show from the 1960s.

Black and white footage of Simpson executives and wives at banquet, aerial shots from Simpson plane. Color footage includes scenes with employees from late 1960s or early 1970s.

Broadcast of the Arthur Godfrey Time radio and television show. This was a variety show that ran on CBS from 1952 to 1972. In this broadcast from August 1957, Arthur Godfrey hosts the show from Simpson Logging Company headquarters in Shelton, Washington. The show was filmed at Mason Lake, a privately owned recreation area set up by the Simpson Logging Company for employees and their families. The broadcast features musical performances, logging demonstrations, and interviews with various Simpson Logging Company employees.

Excerpts contain footage from interviews with Simpson employees, including public relations director Dave James, as well as managers Bud Pune?, Oscar Levine, and Max Schmidt Jr. Logging demonstrations and interview with forester Hap Johnson. Musical performances by Ken Barry, Jimmy Carroll, and Jan Davis.

Excerpts contain footage of interviews with Simpson employees including manager Max Schmidt Jr., demonstrations of logging practices, musical performances by Billy Strange and Stan Newman, and contemporary advertisements.

Excerpts contain footage of logging demonstrations including a speed climbing contest and log rolling competition. Interview with Simpson manager Oscar Levine about seedlings and forest management. Musical performance by Billy Strange. Contemporary advertisements including Baker's Angel Flake Coconut.

Hap Johnson, world champion tree topper, demonstrates logging skills by cutting, climbing, and topping spar tree for the television program, You Asked for It. Filmed at Simpson Logging Company's sustained yield tree farm at Shelton, Washington. Includes advertisements for Skippy peanut butter.

Hap Johnson, world champion tree topper, demonstrates logging skills for the television program, You Asked for It. Filmed at Simpson Logging Company's sustained yield tree farm at Shelton, Washington. This film contains scenes from Reel 14 (T29).

Hap Johnson performs tree climbing demonstration. A group of men and women exit a building, men operate mill machinery, a man interviews mill workers. Three men read the book Green Power by James Stevens. Forest Festival parade, two men planting seedlings.

Simpson Timber Company newsreel filmed by Jim Hartley and David James. The segments "New Log Lifter at Eureka Ply" and "Wrapping Stops Yapping" include scenes of a log lifter and redwood plywood manufacture at the Simpson Plywood Mill in Eureka, California. "Birthday for Annie & Mary" is about a new railroad track opening at Arcata and Mad River in California. "Happy Day at Idanha" shows Harry Spencer working at the Idanha veneer plant in central Oregon. "Simpson at the Dealer Shows" is a color segment about Simpson exhibits at a Dallas lumber dealer convention. This segment includes "Miss Virgin Timber" christening a new 18-foot Simpson Shelton Products Cruiser with Simpson Timber Company employees Orr Shelton and Bill Plunkett. "Birthday for Annie & Mary," "Happy Day at Idanha," and "Simpson at the Dealer Shows" are also on Reel 18 (T25).

Simpson Timber Company newsreel filmed by Jim Hartley and Dave James. The segment "Disaster at Klamath" reports on a 1,000 year flood on the Klamath River in California. Shows destructive logjams along the Klamath including Crescent City harbor, resulting in flooding and the use of alternative transport of lumber and supplies by air. "Redwood Grove Dedication" shows American Forestry Association President Edward Stamm speaking at the Simpson Reed Grove dedication in Redwood State Park, California, in honor of Simpson Reed & Company owners Sol Simpson and Mark Reed. "Birthday for Annie & Mary" shows the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a route change of the Arcata and Mad River Railroad in response to California State Highway system construction. "New Spars for Old Ironsides" shows a spar tree harvest to replace the mast of the ship, Old Ironsides . "Happy Day at Idanha" shows the Idanha veneer plant in central Oregon. "End of the Old Mill" shows buildings of the first Simpson sawmill in Shelton, Washington, pre-demolition. "Who Torpedoed the Whistle Punk?" shows the Whistle Punk, a 3-ton lumber torpedo, hauling logs up the mountainside. "Simpson at the Dealer Shows" is a color segment about Simpson exhibits at a Dallas lumber dealer convention. The footage includes "Miss Virgin Timber" christening a new 18-foot Simpson Shelton Products Cruiser with Simpson Logging Company employees Orr Shelton and Bill Plunkett. "Birthday for Annie & Mary," "Happy Day at Idanha," and "Simpson at the Dealer Shows" are also on Reel 17 (T24).

Simpson Timber Company newsreel filmed by Jim Hartley and Dave James. "Others See Us" shows teachers from Mason County Public Schools on an educational day trip to Camp Grisdale, a Simpson logging village. Also in this segment, wives of Klamath Veneer Plant employees take a tour of the plant. "Northward to Hudson Bay" shows aerial views of Hudson Bay, Hudson Bay logging road construction, and Northern Spruce inspection. Canadian First Nations' men log for Simpson Timber Company to the north of Hudson Bay. Cabins made of particle board serve as accommodations for First Nations loggers. Saskatchewan Premier Ross Thatcher attends mill dedication. Mill dedication dinner in Hudson Bay Legion Hall. "Year of the Tree Farms" shows Bill Looney explaining the tree farm system to Forest Festival queens, who then plant saplings. "Switch to Dry Lumber " shows dry lumber manufacturing, kiln operations drying Western Hemlock and Douglas Fir wood, and operation of mill equipment. "How Redwoods Grow" shows the Redwood Demonstration Forest in Humboldt County, California, with various speakers and a tour. "Mad River Plywood" shows aerial views of the Mad River plywood plant in Arcata, California, operation of mill lathes, and men working on the line stacking plywood. "New Plants Rising" shows construction of a new pulp mill in Fairhaven, California, including aerial views.

Footage of Simpson Logging Company locomotives and parade floats from the 1946 Forest Festival. Also contains color footage from a 1957 Forest Festival parade including Washington State Governor Albert Rosellini.

Forest Festival parade, including performances in costume and regalia, logging demonstrations, and acting sketches.

Narrated footage of Forest Festival parade, floats, logging skills demonstrations and contests. Includes City of Shelton architecture, streets, and vehicular traffic.

Forest Festival parade including footage of festival princesses, dance performances, logging skill contests, and fire suppression demonstration.

Home movies, including scenes of the 26th Annual Forest Festival.

Review of the manufacturing process for Douglas Fir lumber at Ryderwood, Washington. Includes fire wardens surveying timber, a construction camp, railroad clearing and construction, horse-drawn road grading, operation of a logging locomotive, installation of electric power in the forest, timber harvest, preparation of a spar tree, and reforestation. Contains scenes of the Ryderwood logging town, the Ryderwood men's dormitory, community buildings, school house, theater, houses, and a group of boys playing at being lumber workers.

Documents the history of Minnesota forestry. Includes horse-drawn timber sleighs, men wearing snowshoes while taking inventory of pines, logging camp bunkhouse, blacksmith, mess hall, locomotive transport of timber, Minnesota's last major logging drive, and Virginia Rainy Lake Mill.

Produced by the Junior League of Tacoma for Point Defiance Park Camp 6 Logging Museum. Narrated film relates the experiences of loggers, the fire risk of steam engines, various logging activities, cabins, oxen teams, tree climbing, rigging, steam donkey engines, and steam locomotives.

Opens with a fragment from "Sick of Setting Chokers," a logging song by Oregonian Buzz Martin, and closes with psychedelic rock music.

Highlights champion logger Hap Johnson and blacksmith Rudy Ratzinger. Includes scenes of lumber yard, logging, rigging, smithing, old machinery, and felling the top of a spar tree.

Interview with "Uncle Ben," who gives an oral history, discussing his memories of Schafer Brothers Logging Company, the period following the Modoc War, a First Nations man called "Cutter," the "Big Skookum", and logging with oxen.

Includes golfers Dick Metz, Jimmy Thompson, Horton Smith, and Ed Dudley (who was a golf instructor to Bing Crosby) demonstrating various golfing shots at Pebble Beach, California, with slow-motion breakdowns. Also includes a brief appearance of Bobby Jones at Augusta, Georgia course.

Street magicians perform in Egypt and India.

A group of "Hollywood starlets" practicing archery in California. Archery expert Howard Hill demonstrates proper form and performs trick shots. Contains slow-motion shots and reactions from "starlets."

A history of roofing and development of housing design. Contains a mix of animation and live action.

James L. Hayes gives a management training lecture.

Radio station KOL FM broadcast with contemporary music and commercial ads, including an ad for Seattle's historic Fresh Air Tavern.