A guide to the Great Lakes lumber industry, 1886

Hotchkiss' Lumberman's Directory of Chicago and the Northwest

During the mid-1880s, the Great Lakes forest products industries were growing at an exponentional rate. Tens of thousands of loggers entered the woods to supply saw mills with raw material that would ultimately be sold as finished lumber, shingles, and other products. To help businesses communicate, George Hotchkiss of Chicago issued this directory of firms throughout the region that produced, sold, or bought lumber. It lists basic information about every company involved in the industry from Duluth to Cincinnati, including hundreds in Wisconsin (starting on page 282). It also included data on logging railroads, laws about labor organizing and strikes, and dozens of illustrated advertisements showing mills, machinery, and goods. Because books such as this quickly went out of date, most were soon discarded; only one other copy of Hotchkiss' Lumberman's Directory is known to exist today.

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