Virginia and Rainy Lake Company

Virginia and Rainy Lake Company
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Virginia and Rainy Lake Company
Creator:
Hayden Nelson
Workers load lumber into a rail car via an electric conveyor belt at a site operated by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, ca. 1928.
The Virginia and Rainy Lake Company (V&RL) incorporated in 1905 and consisted of three subsidiaries: the Virginia Lumber Company; the Duluth, Virginia, and Rainy Lake Railway; and the Minnesota Land and Construction Company. In 1908, investment from lumber magnates
Frederick E. Weyerhaeuser
and Edward Hines transformed the V&RL into the world’s largest white pine lumber company overnight. In 1929, however, twenty-one years of mounting costs and decreasing yields forced the company to close.
Logging operations began extending into northern Minnesota during the 1880s and 1890s, leaving
devastated landscapes
and
forest fires
in their wake. In 1901, two Minnesota lumbermen, William O’Brien and Wirt H. Cook, organized the Duluth, Virginia, and Rainy Lake Railway (DV&RL) to transport logs from their remote operations to sawmills and distribution centers. The DV&RL, along with the Virginia Lumber Company and the Minnesota Land and Construction Company, became subsidiaries of the O’Brien-and-Cook-owned Virginia & Rainy Lake Company, which incorporated in 1905.
In November 1908, the V&RL offloaded the DV&RL to a holding company before merging with lumber magnates Edward Hines and Frederick Weyerhaeuser. The merger made it the largest lumber concern in the world, with control over most of the standing pine in the northern US and markets in Chicago, Buffalo, Duluth, and Minneapolis. Commanding these American markets while funneling lumber into the growing Canadian West made the V&RL a transnational supplier of pine lumber.
Once amalgamated, V&RL controlled nearly three billion board feet of timberlands; valued at the common rate of $6 per thousand board feet, they gave the company a total valuation of around $20 million. The new board of the V&RL elected Hines (both a prominent lumber-industry figure and the company’s largest single shareholder), to assume the role of company president.
In line with forestry protocols of the day, Hines pursued a policy of clearcutting. Like other companies, the V&RL stripped entire forests from the landscape in the name of fire prevention and agricultural development. Superintendent of Logging Frank H. Gillmor reported in 1919 that he had received instructions “to practically clean the ground of all timber that would make anything in the shape of lumber.” As the 1920s wore on and company profits dwindled, Hines reiterated clear-cutting efforts—not for the sake of conservation, but to log the timber, mill it into lumber, and “convert it into money as rapidly as possible.”
The
IWW strikes in 1916 and 1917
devastated the V&RL, with some logging camps losing more than 90 percent of their workforce. But the strikes were only the beginning of the V&RL’s labor problem. A labor shortage, which Hines and Gillmor attributed to state and county road construction, plagued the company throughout the 1920s. In 1915, the average daily wage per man on the V&RL payroll was $4.94; wages rose considerably after the strikes, never falling below $11.72 after 1920.
By 1928, the V&RL logged more than 30,000 acres for only the second time since 1915, but with a significantly diminished yield per acre. Whereas 32,000 acres yielded over 130 million board feet in 1915, by 1928 the 30,000 acres yielded only 84 million board feet. The company needed to log more acreage simply to stay afloat with decreasing yields and increasing costs.
Only a corporation as heavily financed as the V&RL could have logged Minnesota’s remnant pine forests, but by the late-1920s the high costs associated with transporting men, supplies, and logs increasing distances became too high even for them. The evolution of the nation’s logging industry, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, flooded the market with lumber that drove down prices, making the high costs of accessing Minnesota’s remnant white pine increasingly prohibitive.
No longer able to justify increasing costs and diminishing yields, the V&RL closed after the 1929 season. At its height, the company’s flagship sawmill at Virginia had occupied one square mile, with seven band saws running nonstop. During its tenure, the V&RL had manufactured roughly 2.5 billion feet of lumber through capital expenses exceeding $30 million.
A few years later, in 1937, the International Logging Company completed Minnesota’s last log drive, closing a critical chapter in state, regional, and national history. The logging industry had grown the state’s economy since before statehood, and produced irreversible effects on
Ojibwe
and
Dakota
peoples and their homelands.
Correct
First Published:
January 21, 2026
Last Modified:
April 10, 2026
Bibliography
“Around the Twin Cities.”
Mississippi Valley Lumberman
(Minneapolis, MN), April 7, 1893.
“Canadian Northern Spreads Out.”
Evening Record
(Windsor, ON), December 21, 1908.
“Cloquet Lumber Co. Won.”
Mississippi Valley Lumberman
(Minneapolis, MN), May 31, 1901.
Eichholz, Duane. “Virginia and Rainy Lake Company.” Originally prepared for History 90, held at the St. Louis County Historical Society, 1954. Copy available at the Minnesota Historical Society as HD9759.V46 E32 1954b.
Engberg, George B. “Collective Bargaining in the Lumber Industry of the Upper Great Lakes States.”
Agricultural History
24, no. 4 (October 1950): 204–211.
“For Sale: 200 Sets of Heavy Logging Harnesses.”
Spokesman-Review
(Spokane, WA), October 1, 1929.
“Great Damage from Forest Fires.”
Mississippi Valley Lumberman
(Minneapolis, MN), June 23, 1893.
Gregar, Courtney. “Weyerhaeuser, Frederick (1834–1914).” MNopedia, April 10, 2017.
Haynes, John E. “Revolt of the ‘Timber Beasts’: IWW Lumber Strike in Minnesota.”
Minnesota History
42, no. 5 (Spring 1971): 162–174.
Hidy, Ralph W., Frank Ernest Hill, and Allan Nevins.
Timber and Men: The Weyerhaeuser Story
. MacMillan Company, 1963.
“Large Northern Mill, Cut Out, Goes on Auction Block.”
American Lumberman
(Chicago, IL), October 13, 1934.
“Largest Pine Mills Saws Last Log.”
American Lumberman
(Chicago, IL), October 19, 1929.
Larson, Agnes M.
History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota
. University of Minnesota Press, 1949.
LaVigne, David. “Mesabi Iron Range Strike, 1916.” MNopedia, October 14, 2015.
Lewis, James G. “Biographical Portrait: Edward Hines (1863–1931).”
Forest History Today
(Spring/Fall 2004): 64–65.
Lovin, Hugh T. “Moses Alexander and the Idaho Lumber Strike of 1917: The Wartime Ordeal of a Progressive.”
Pacific Northwest Quarterly
66, no. 3 (July 1975): 155–122.
“Lumber.”
Youngstown Daily Vindicator
(Youngstown, OH), June 1, 1926.
“Lumber King is for Low Price.”
Spokane Daily Chronicle
(Spokane, WA), December 21, 1908.
Millikan, William. “Destruction of Bois Forte Ojibwe Homeland, 1891–1929.” MNopedia, December 4, 2019.
Oehler, C. M.
Time in the Timber
. Forest Products History Foundation, Minnesota Historical Society, 1948.
P2334
Frank H. Gillmor papers, 1910–1928, 1948
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Business records and correspondence kept by Gillmor, who served as the superintendent of logging for the Virginia & Rainy Lake Lumber Company from 1910 through 1928. Also contains an interview transcript from 1948 with the Forest Products History Foundation.
“Pine Forests of United States Under One Hat.”
Duluth Daily Star
(Duluth, MN), December 10, 1908.
Rader, Benjamin G. “The Montana Lumber Strike of 1917.”
Pacific Historical Review
36, no. 2 (May 1967): 189–207.
“Three Billion Feet of Pine.”
Stillwater Daily Gazette
(Stillwater, MN), December 22, 1908.
“Timber Deal is Completed Here Today.”
Duluth Daily Star
(Duluth, MN), December 19, 1908.
“Timber Prices Hold Well.”
Boston Evening Transcript
(Boston, MA), January 8, 1908.
Tyler, Robert L. “The United States Government as Union Organizer: The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
47, no. 3 (December 1960): 434–451.
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company records, 1901–1965
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Minutes (1905–1939), maps and platbooks, deeds, abstracts, and title and tax records of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company.
Witek, Barbara. “IWW Lumber Strike, 1916–1917.” MNopedia, August 22, 1916.
Wyatt, Barbara.
The Logging Era at Voyageurs National Park Historic Contexts and Property Types
. Midwest Support Office, National Park Service, 1999.
Related Resources
Secondary Sources
Edward Hines Lumber Company.
50 Years: Edward Hines Lumber Co., Commemorating a Pioneer in the Nation’s Oldest Industry
. Edward Hines Lumber Company, 1942.
Nycklemoe, Karl. “Voyageurs National Park.” MNopedia, June 22, 2020.
Related Images
Workers load lumber into a rail car via an electric conveyor belt at a site operated by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, ca. 1928.
Logging around the Lone Jack Mine in Virginia, Minnesota, 1893—an example of commercial logging at the site before the incorporation of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company in 1905.
Frederick Weyerhaeuser, 1900.
Edward Hines, ca. 1901.
A camp for laborers building the Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway north of Virginia, Minnesota, 1902.
The largest load of pine logs ever hauled on logging sleds in Wisconsin and Minnesota, 1909. The load was scaled at 71,770.
Workers loading dressed lumber outside the entrance to a warehouse of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, 1915.
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber camp no. 39, one mile north of Echo Lake, ca. 1916.
Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway construction camp, 1920.
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company Camp 93, ca. 1920.
Color postcard depicting the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company’s lumber mill, ca. 1920.
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company Camp 98, 1924.
Dam across a stream created by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company to raise water to float logs, ca. 1928.
Employees of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company load lumber onto a train car, ca. 1928.
Workers of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company load lumber onto train cars, ca. 1928.
Railroad tracks through a Minnesota pine forest—part of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway, ca. 1928.
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company workers transport white pine logs with horses in Virginia, Minnesota, ca. 1928.
Color postcard showing the main entrance to Virginia and Rainy Lake Company Mill No. 3, ca. 1928.
Loading lumber onto a rail car via a conveyor belt
Workers load lumber into a rail car via an electric conveyor belt at a site operated by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Logging around the Lone Jack Mine in Virginia
Logging around the Lone Jack Mine in Virginia, Minnesota, 1893—an example of commercial logging at the site before the incorporation of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company in 1905.
Holding Location
Minnesota Digital Library
Articles
More Information
Frederick Weyerhaeuser
Frederick Weyerhaeuser, 1900.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Edward Hines
Edward Hines, ca. 1901.
Public domain
Holding Location
Wikimedia Commons
More Information
Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway construction camp
A camp for laborers building the Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway north of Virginia, Minnesota, 1902.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Log load scaled at 71,770
The largest load of pine logs ever hauled on logging sleds in Wisconsin and Minnesota, 1909. The load was scaled at 71,770.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Workers loading dressed lumber
Workers loading dressed lumber outside the entrance to a warehouse of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, 1915.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber camp no. 39
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber camp no. 39, one mile north of Echo Lake, ca. 1916.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway construction camp
Duluth, Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway construction camp, 1920.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company Camp 93
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company Camp 93, ca. 1920.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
The Virginia and Rainy Lake Company’s lumber mill
Color postcard depicting the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company’s lumber mill, ca. 1920.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company Camp 98
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company Camp 98, 1924.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Dam created by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company
Dam across a stream created by the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company to raise water to float logs, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company loading lumber
Employees of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company load lumber onto a train car, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company workers load lumber onto train cars
Workers of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company load lumber onto train cars, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway tracks
Railroad tracks through a Minnesota pine forest—part of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Railway, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Transporting white pine logs with horses
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company workers transport white pine logs with horses in Virginia, Minnesota, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company mill no. 3
Color postcard showing the main entrance to Virginia and Rainy Lake Company Mill No. 3, ca. 1928.
Holding Location
Minnesota Historical Society
Articles
More Information
Related Articles
Destruction of Bois Forte Ojibwe Homeland, 1891–1929
Duluth, Winnipeg, and Pacific Railway
IWW Lumber Strike, 1916–1917
Ranier Railroad Bridge
Weyerhaeuser, Frederick (1834–1914)
Turning Point
In December 1908, the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, a conglomerate owned by lumbermen William O’Brien and Wirt H. Cook, secures capital investment and land from Frederick E. Weyerhaeuser and Chicago-based lumber magnate Edward Hines. The deal brings much of the scattered, remote pinelands in northern Minnesota and Ontario “under one hat.”
Chronology
1893
Early commercial logging operations begin at Virginia, Minnesota.
1893
A forest fire destroys the city of Virginia.
1900
Another forest fire strikes Virginia.
1901
Construction begins on the Duluth, Virginia, and Rainy Lake Railway (DV&RL).
1905
The Virginia and Rainy Lake Company (V&RL) incorporates, assuming all of the stock and debts of the Virginia Lumber Company; the Duluth, Virginia, and Rainy Lake Railway; and the Minnesota Land and Construction Company.
1905
Shortly after incorporation, the V&RL absorbs the Mulvey and McClure Land and Timber Company. The stock of the V&RL is valued at $1,650,000.
1908
V&RL offloads the Duluth, Virginia, and Rainy Lake Railway to a holding company overseeing the construction of the Canadian Northern Railway. The holding company agrees to build a spur line connecting the DV&RL to the Canadian Northern’s terminal at Winnipeg.
1908
The pine lands of Edward Hines, Frederick Weyerhaeuser, and the Virginia Lumber Company amalgamate under the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company, with Hines as president. The company’s stock value rises to $10,700,000, with its lands valued at nearly $20 million.
1916–1917
A rash of labor strikes hits the lumber industry from Wisconsin to Washington state. The V&RL feels its effects through the 1920 season.
1917
V&RL production peaks at more than 145 million board feet in a season.
1928
Hines purchases nearly 70,000 acres in Oregon’s Blue Mountains containing an estimated 890 million board feet of standing timber. His timber empire now stretches from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.
1929
The V&RL closes. The company begins the long process of liquidating logging equipment and remaining lumber on hand.
1931
Hines dies in Chicago.
1934
The V&RL finishes auctioning off its remaining logging and milling equipment.
1937
The last log drive in Minnesota is completed.
Bibliography
“Around the Twin Cities.”
Mississippi Valley Lumberman
(Minneapolis, MN), April 7, 1893.
“Canadian Northern Spreads Out.”
Evening Record
(Windsor, ON), December 21, 1908.
“Cloquet Lumber Co. Won.”
Mississippi Valley Lumberman
(Minneapolis, MN), May 31, 1901.
Eichholz, Duane. “Virginia and Rainy Lake Company.” Originally prepared for History 90, held at the St. Louis County Historical Society, 1954. Copy available at the Minnesota Historical Society as HD9759.V46 E32 1954b.
Engberg, George B. “Collective Bargaining in the Lumber Industry of the Upper Great Lakes States.”
Agricultural History
24, no. 4 (October 1950): 204–211.
“For Sale: 200 Sets of Heavy Logging Harnesses.”
Spokesman-Review
(Spokane, WA), October 1, 1929.
“Great Damage from Forest Fires.”
Mississippi Valley Lumberman
(Minneapolis, MN), June 23, 1893.
Gregar, Courtney. “Weyerhaeuser, Frederick (1834–1914).” MNopedia, April 10, 2017.
Haynes, John E. “Revolt of the ‘Timber Beasts’: IWW Lumber Strike in Minnesota.”
Minnesota History
42, no. 5 (Spring 1971): 162–174.
Hidy, Ralph W., Frank Ernest Hill, and Allan Nevins.
Timber and Men: The Weyerhaeuser Story
. MacMillan Company, 1963.
“Large Northern Mill, Cut Out, Goes on Auction Block.”
American Lumberman
(Chicago, IL), October 13, 1934.
“Largest Pine Mills Saws Last Log.”
American Lumberman
(Chicago, IL), October 19, 1929.
Larson, Agnes M.
History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota
. University of Minnesota Press, 1949.
LaVigne, David. “Mesabi Iron Range Strike, 1916.” MNopedia, October 14, 2015.
Lewis, James G. “Biographical Portrait: Edward Hines (1863–1931).”
Forest History Today
(Spring/Fall 2004): 64–65.
Lovin, Hugh T. “Moses Alexander and the Idaho Lumber Strike of 1917: The Wartime Ordeal of a Progressive.”
Pacific Northwest Quarterly
66, no. 3 (July 1975): 155–122.
“Lumber.”
Youngstown Daily Vindicator
(Youngstown, OH), June 1, 1926.
“Lumber King is for Low Price.”
Spokane Daily Chronicle
(Spokane, WA), December 21, 1908.
Millikan, William. “Destruction of Bois Forte Ojibwe Homeland, 1891–1929.” MNopedia, December 4, 2019.
Oehler, C. M.
Time in the Timber
. Forest Products History Foundation, Minnesota Historical Society, 1948.
P2334
Frank H. Gillmor papers, 1910–1928, 1948
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Business records and correspondence kept by Gillmor, who served as the superintendent of logging for the Virginia & Rainy Lake Lumber Company from 1910 through 1928. Also contains an interview transcript from 1948 with the Forest Products History Foundation.
“Pine Forests of United States Under One Hat.”
Duluth Daily Star
(Duluth, MN), December 10, 1908.
Rader, Benjamin G. “The Montana Lumber Strike of 1917.”
Pacific Historical Review
36, no. 2 (May 1967): 189–207.
“Three Billion Feet of Pine.”
Stillwater Daily Gazette
(Stillwater, MN), December 22, 1908.
“Timber Deal is Completed Here Today.”
Duluth Daily Star
(Duluth, MN), December 19, 1908.
“Timber Prices Hold Well.”
Boston Evening Transcript
(Boston, MA), January 8, 1908.
Tyler, Robert L. “The United States Government as Union Organizer: The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.”
Mississippi Valley Historical Review
47, no. 3 (December 1960): 434–451.
Virginia and Rainy Lake Company records, 1901–1965
Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
Description: Minutes (1905–1939), maps and platbooks, deeds, abstracts, and title and tax records of the Virginia and Rainy Lake Company.
Witek, Barbara. “IWW Lumber Strike, 1916–1917.” MNopedia, August 22, 1916.
Wyatt, Barbara.
The Logging Era at Voyageurs National Park Historic Contexts and Property Types
. Midwest Support Office, National Park Service, 1999.
Related Resources
Secondary Sources
Edward Hines Lumber Company.
50 Years: Edward Hines Lumber Co., Commemorating a Pioneer in the Nation’s Oldest Industry
. Edward Hines Lumber Company, 1942.
Nycklemoe, Karl. “Voyageurs National Park.” MNopedia, June 22, 2020.