Joggins Raft Company
The Joggins Raft Company was a corporation formed in 1888 by railroad industrialist to build timber rafts. These rafts were intended to transport large quantities of timber by waterways to markets of large populations. Background. James Mervyn Donahue, son of businessman Peter Donahue of the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad, and John D. Spreckels of the San Diego and Arizona Railway formed the Joggins Raft Company when they incorporated it with capital on September 21, 1889. The intent of the company was to build log rafts of eight to twelve million board feet. The size was  dependent on the availability of timber at a particular time. These rafts were to be towed by tugs to San Francisco, where the mills will be located to process the logs into lumber. The cost to construction an 8,000,000 board foot raft was estimated at less than $15,000. A freight rate of approximately $2 per 1,000 board feet of timber was an enormous savings over the traditional shipping methods using railways. Benson Lumber Company then could produce finished lumber at a much lower cost than the old conventional lumber companies.