Greenwood Logging Company was in business ca. 1922 to ca. 1938, headquartered in the Aberdeen-Hoquiam area. In 1924, there were 200 employees. The founder of the business was Bill Boeing, who had come to the Pacific Northwest in 1902. The product of a wealthy Detroit timber and mining family, he followed family holdings to Aberdeen, where he spent five years learning the lumber business and became president of Greenwood Logging Company. He arrived in Seattle in 1908, where he started the Boeing Airplane Company. Boeing was still listed as manager of Greenwood Logging Company in 1930.
Aberdeen is a city in Grays Harbor (formerly called Chehalis) County. The town was platted by Samuel Benn in 1884 on his homestead. Benn was born in New York City and in 1856 he came to San Francisco. Three years later he moved to Washington Territory and settled on the Chehalis River. There are two theories as to how it got its name. Some say it arose from the fact that the Aberdeen Packing Company of Ilwaco established a cannery in early days on the Benn homestead. Others say that the name was suggested by Mrs. James Stewart, who, before her marriage in 1868, was Miss Joan B. Kellan of Aberdeen, Scotland, who had come to America with her parents in 1849 and settled in Ohio. She and her husband moved to Washington Territory in 1874.
Kinsey Brothers Photographs of the Lumber Industry, 1890-1945
