Archives West Finding Aid

The Baird-Naundorf Lumber Company was formed in 1925 to succeed a partnership formed about a year earlier by Thomas Baird and Alfred G. Naundorf. The firm remained in the ownership of these men and their families until the 1950's when the Baird family shares were sold to Fred Miller, a long-time employee of the firm.

The company's principal operation, a planing mill, was located at Spokane. Until 1944 the company also operated a retail lumber yard, and from 1945 to 1961 a sawmill and drying kilns, all located adjacent to the planing mill. The company also leased a sawmill at Twin Lakes, Idaho, for a number of years. In its early years the company acquired its raw materials by purchase of rough-sawed lumber from a number of local sawmills. Increasingly, however, it became necessary to purchase logs and assume the sawing operation. Eventually it became necessary to go one further step and purchase standing timber, usually on National Forest Lands some distance from Spokane, and to contract for logging. The mill's finished lumber was sold to both wholesale lumber dealers and directly to retail lumber yards. Most of the output was shipped by rail to buyers in the Midwest and East.

In 1961, following a fire which destroyed much of the plant, the operators discontinued the business, disposing of the lumber stocks through usual sources and selling the usable manufacturing machinery at auction. By 1963 the company was an inactive corporation.