Archives West Finding Aid

The Intermountain Lumber Company, at one time considered one of the largest lumber companies in Montana, was incorporated in June of 1947 by company founders Lanning Macfarland, D.M. Warren and Dr. Horace H. Koessler. Koessler was a medical doctor and was also involved in the livestock business in the 1930s and owned the Gordon Ranch, and Wine Glass Ranch, Inc., near Helmville, Montana. Macfarland was a local banker, and Warren a veterinarian. In 1946, using credit from the Wine Glass Company, Koessler and his business partners began construction of a sawmill on the Gordon Ranch in order to process the timber on the property. About a year later they established the Intermountain Lumber Company in order to sort, kiln dry, surface, and sell the lumber produced by the Wine Glass sawmill.

Intermountain soon expanded into marketing lumber from other local mills as well as expanding their own logging operations. The company remained under the same directorship until 1953 when D.M. Warren died leaving his holdings to his wife and son. In 1954 Ira C. Keller, a paper manufacturing executive from Oregon, became a stockholder and director. In order to expand the company's business interests Keller encouraged Waldorf Paper Company of Minnesota to establish a pulp mill near Missoula. In 1956 Intermountain purchased Thornton Lumber Company, and Western Montana Lumber Company, both in Missoula, in order to consolidate local log barking and wood chipping facilities which are necessary for preparing sawmill waste for pulp production. With this purchase the original Thornton company acquired 40% of Intermountain stock as well as other interests of the original Wine Glass Ranch, Inc., and the Waldorf Paper Products Company became holder of an Intermountain mortgage and some stock shares. The mills in Missoula eventually grew to include Missoula Pres-to-Logs and Tree Farmers, Inc. In 1963 Intermountain added yet another mill to the company by purchasing the Idaho Forest Products Company in Salmon, Idaho. The company also established S. and W. Sawmill, Inc. (Formerly Edens Division) in Darby, another mill in Conner, and for a short time, from 1969-1971, owned and operated a mill at Clayton, Idaho. In 1973 the company merged with Hoerner Waldorf Corporation which operated a paper and pulp mill in Missoula, and Intermountain became a division of the paper company.