The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-06-30
THE RISE OF A LOGGER.

Sol Simpson, Who Began as a Laborer
and Became a Captain of Industry.
Sol Simpson, logger, died in Seattle
last wednesday, leaving wide circle
Of business and social friends to mourn
his loss. The business of logging has
never been credited with the same de-
gree Of Importance. as some other call
irlgs in which men engage. There nave
been loggers on Puget Sound for more
than half century, just as there have
been on the Columbia River and in
British Columbia Sol Simpson was
not an ordinary logger, says the Port
land Oregonian. He was one of those
rare captains of industry who prove by
their Network that, while all men are
created free and equal, few OF them,
bv Individual efforts and energy, soon
dissolve the bonds of equality. Early
environment and opportunity caused
Simpson to drift into line OF INDUS
trial efforts where Drawn and brains
were alike necessary to success The
rarer executive ability and financial
acumen that developed in Simpson later
In life is proof that equal success would
have followed his efforts in almost any
financial or commercial line on which
he might have started
Beginning as a common laIborer on
the railroad grade, MIR. Simpson saved
his meagre wages, and through his
great industry and ability to grasp the
essential features of the most ordinary
task allotted him, was soon in a posi-
ton to undertake sub-contracting on q
small scale. From that he moved on
I'm the scale until in the railroad build
ing era of the '70s he held number of
important contracts on the Southern
Pacific. With the decline of the rail-
road building he went to Seattle and
engaged in the business of general con-
tracing, but finding an insufficiency of
that work took to logging, a bust
ness in which for more than twenty
five years he has stood at the head.
Beginning with a handful of men, half
a dozen oxen and a few chains, the
Simpson Logging Company developed
into an enterprise which now employs
500 men, owns many miles of railroad,
with numerous engines and cars and
annually puts in the water more than
100,000,000 feet Of logs.
A business cannot grow from moth
ing into such magnitude without the
controlling influence of a master mind,
and until the foundation for his success
had been firmly placed Mr. Simpson
remained in the woods with his men
and oxen, directing every movement,
He reduced the work of transporting
merchantable timber from the forest to
the mill science, and while less enter
prising loggers were still engaged in
handlogging or using oxen Simpson had
installed the donkey engine, the logging
railroad and other up to date equip
ment. The world pays tribute to In
dustrial genius, and in due season. by
strict attention to his work, Sol Simp-
son, logger, accumulated more money
bought steamboats, and steamships, and
became heavily interested in numerous
banks on Puguet Sound.
Here in Portland the steamship Ore
gon had been lying idle for months,
badly in need of repairs, which her
owners would not make, because they
were unable to discover route on
which she could make money. Regard
ing her in this unfavorable light, they
sold her cheap. and her purchaser, Sol
Simpson, logger, repaired her and
placed her on the Alaska route, where,
on her first trip, she made enough pro-
fit to pay for her purchase price and
the cost of repairs, and on her second
trip added more than $4,000 to the
Simpson bank account.
No preference was shown Simpson in
the Oregon deal, and his success was
not due to luck. There were plenty of
other men who had more money and
knew more about steamships than
Simpson did but the same keen judg-
ment which had made all of his ven
lures so successful disclosed to him an