Summer Lumber Company
SUMNER LUMBER COMPANY
THE Sumner Lumber Company, incorporated
in 1911 by Ralph E. Sumner, Herbert E.
Sumner and Frederick H. Sandborn, was organized to engage in the sale of imported and rare woods, specializing in India teakwood and Honduras mahogany. The large demand for teakwood in yachts and ships has caused the com-pany to keep large stocks at a point near New York. The company also imports rosewood, coco- b o 1 o, lignum- vitae, ebony, boxwood and East India mahogany.
Since 1 9 1 4 the company has also taken over the sales of hardwood lumber for several prominent manufac- turers producing oak, maple, beech, birch, chestnut, whitewood and other hardwoods. The company's ability to handle large contracts for American woods secured them numerous buying- aontracts for the Allied countries after the war began, chiefly for clear spruce and Honduras mahogany for aircraft work, in which field they were p ineers. When the United States entered the war thev turned their attention to ship construction, t m :ig the supply source for lumber of several or.:- argest shipbuilders, especially in teakwood and mahogany.
Tte members of the company, with intimate ac- hhthtce with nearly every reliable sawmill in America, were enabled to so distribute their sub- ::ntracts that entire shipments could be made :r:m many points and thus be quickly dispatched. Ralph E. Sumner, the president, is fifty-five years :li started in the lumber business at the age of ::i-teen as tally boy, and through the various branches of handling, manufacture, sales, inspection and merchandizing, has reached the position of an authority on hardwoods. Herbert E. Sumner, his son, who is vice-president of the company, studied engineering, but found that his knowledge of that subject, combined with his father's experience, would be an asset in the lumber business, and he joined in organizing the company, making a study of advertising and sales work and successfully applying it to the company's service. His engineering knowledge has proved to be of great value to the company and its shipbuilding and air-craft customers during the war. The management is progressive and enterprising and the business of the company has rapidly expanded.
The specialized character of the company's business has required the firm to establish most favorable and direct relations with producers at home and abroad, and the company has secured access to a number of sources of supply in those countries overseas and such domestic * districts as are the most reliable in their ability to promptly fill orders from select stock.
To keep pace with a large and growing demand of various industries requires not only an accurate knowledge of the varieties of timber, but also to know in what particular localities the different varieties are found, and also to keep stocked up ahead of demand in order that the timber may be properly seasoned.
It is their ability to do this as well as personal qualities that have earned the company's success.
