Archives West Finding Aid

George Frederick "Fritz" Jewett, a prominent lumberman, was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, August 22, 1896, the son of James Richard and Margaret (Weyerhaeuser) Jewett. He received his early education at Brown and Nichols School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He continued his studies at Harvard University where he received his B.A. in 1919 and M.B.A. in 1922. In 1937 he did postgraduate work in forestry in Germany on a Carl Schurz Memorial Fellowship. In 1949 he received an honorary LL.D degree from Washington State College, and in 1954 an honorary L.H.D. degree from Pacific University.

In 1917 he entered naval training at Newport, Rhode Island and served as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve aboard the USS Oklahoma, on convoy duty in the Mediterranean Sea, during the First World War.

Fritz Jewett married Mary Pelton Cooper in Ogdensburg, New York, September 12, 1925. They had two children, George Frederick and Margaret Weyerhaeuser.

In 1922 Jewett joined the accounting department of the General Timber Service in Saint Paul as an auditor's apprentice. In 1925 he became office manager of the Clearwater Timber Company, Lewiston, Idaho, and three years later he joined the Edward Rutledge Timber Company, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, as general manager, a position he held until 1931. He served in an executive capacity in several timber companies until 1937 when he moved to Spokane, Washington to become president of Potlatch Yards, Inc. In 1946 he was elected president of Potlatch Forests, Inc., which was formed by the merger of the Edward Rutledge, Clearwater, and Potlatch timber concerns; from 1949 until his death he was board chairman of Potlatch Forests, Inc.

He was well known in the timber industry for his progressive ideas in forest conservation. In addition to his principal business interest, he was a director of Boise Payette Lumber Co., Weyerhaeuser Sales Co., the Columbia Electric & Manufacturing Co., and the Northern Pacific Railway Co. At one time he served on the advisory board of the Spokane and Eastern branch of the Seattle First National Bank.

Known for his local philanthropic activities, Jewett made substantial gifts to St. John's Cathedral and other Spokane institutions. He financed the Donald Kirk David Fellowships at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, donated the James Richard Jewett Observatory at Washington State College, and made a substantial contribution to the music department of the University of Idaho.

He was a member of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, serving as chairman of its conservation committee during 1931-1935. He was also a member of the Society of American Foresters, Western Forestry and Conservation Association (president, 1936-1943), North Idaho Forestry Association, North Idaho Conservation Association, and the Society of American Foresters. Locally he belonged to the Rotary, Country, and City clubs of Spokane. He was lay reader at St. John's Cathedral in Spokane, and director of the National Episcopal Church Foundation.

George Frederick Jewett died in Spokane, Washington, November 23, 1956. He is buried in Coeur d'Alene.