Weyerhaeuser Company..... Iowa To Washington
We here in the heavily timbered land of the Pacific Northwest have certainly seen and heard the name of Weyerhaeuser Company and know it has something to do with the timber and lumbering industry. We’d never have guessed that Frederick Weyerhaeuser (1834-1914) began his company in the Mississippi River town of Davenport, Iowa, but he did. The company was founded in 1900 by Frederick Weyerhaeuser who had emigrated to the U.S. from Germany when he was 18. He worked first as a laborer in Eric, Pennsylvania, where he met and married Elisabeth Bladel. In 1856, the young couple moved to Rock Island, Illinois (across the river from Davenport). Weyerhaeuser found work in a sawmill and lumber yard, eventually becoming foreman and arduously began saving his money. Weyerhaeuser was a workaholic and by the mid-1860s he had purchased the mill and was buying pine tracts in Wisconsin, expanding into Minnesota, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. By 1903, Weyerhaeuser owned more than 1.5 million acr...