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Shelley's Site

Comments to svoie@scn.org.

Updated November 28, 1999.

The young people who remained in Ryderwood likely weren't concerned that their careers there would be comparatively short-lived. By 1950 Long-Bell's timber crop had decreased dramatically, as could be expected after almost thirty years of continuous logging. Even the earliest logged and replanted lands were not mature enough to produce harvestable stands of second-growth timber.

In the summer of 1951, Ross Inman and Luther felled the last tree in the Long-Bell woods. Bucking, loading, and hauling the downed timber kept the dwindling crews busy for more than a year. Then on April 8, 1953, the Longview Daily News reported the following:

It was on July 18, 1952 that the officials of the Long-Bell Lumber Company announced the logging community of Ryderwood in northern Cowlitz County was "for sale."

Long-Bell founded the community in 1923 in the heart of its Southwest Washington timber holdings to serve as a family logging camp. But in 1952 most of the timber surrounding the model logging town had been cut and the company had established a 67,000 acre tree farm to produce timber for future years. With the creation of the managed-forest, there was no further need for a logging center of the proportions of Ryderwood.

The "for sale" sign on Ryderwood came down today. The entire town has been sold by The Long-Bell Lumber Company to a new corporation known as Senior Estates Inc. . . . The once thriving logging community will be converted to a haven for retired persons living on social security payments and other pensions. Harry H. Kem, a Los Angeles realtor and instigator of the project, said Senior Homes will take possession on June 15. . . . "Long-Bell walks out on June 15 and we walk in," the realtor declared.

Starting Over