Recycling, as you know, is a fairly modem pastime. But there was one man, a Swedish immigrant, who was way ahead of the times and recycled before it was popular. His name was Charles Axel Smith and he owned the C.A. Smith Lumber Company in Camden. This successful and industrious man had the foresight to make something out of the wood chips left over from sawing lumber at his mill.
Here’s a little of his background. Charles was born in Ostergotland, Sweden on December 12, 1852, and at age 14 emigrated to Minneapolis with his father and sister. He attended public schools here, and in 1872 became a student at the University of Minnesota. While at the U of M he lived with John S. Pillsbury, who had been Governor of Minnesota for several years. He worked in Pillsbury’s hardware store, becoming a life-long friend.
In 1878 they moved to a new town in Minnesota called Herman (which was on the Great Northern line) and built an elevator, opened an implement store and started a lumber business. Charles and John were equal partners under the name of C.A. Smith and Company. Additional retail lumber yards were started in three more small towns, along with a new partner, C.J. Johnson. In 1884 the three men reorganized, cut timber in a tract owned by Pillsbury and sawed the logs at Minneapolis mills.
In 1893 the C.A. Smith Lumber Co. began its corporate career by building the largest, most expensive mill (up to that time) in Minneapolis. Its yearly output was about 112,000,000 ft. of lumber. The so-called “waste edging” is what was used in the manufacturing of a patent board called Compo-Board. This branch of the business was called Northwest Compo-Board Company and Smith was its president. This is where his recycling began!
I was very lucky to see this product first-hand — it is what my dad had put in our reinvented attic in “the house behind the Flagpole” when he had a bedroom made for my sister and me. I described it as beige with a rough texture which looked like someone had boiled up a large amount of cardboard and wood chips, mixed it with oatmeal, rolled it out and baked it!
So what was Compo-Board really made of? It was a composite board with three principal parts—the surface of heavy paper, the wooden core and the cement. The paper was a special extra hard paper, non-porous and non-conductor of heat. The cement was of great strength and permanently held the paper to the slats. The wooden core was made of thoroughly dried slats, and put in indiscriminately as to make a grain that would prevent warping. The whole, after the parts were assembled, was subjected to heavy pressure and intense heat. It would take the place of lumber anywhere and could be sawed with an ordinary band saw. It came in strips of 4 ft. wide and from 1 to 18 ft. in length.
Here is what the sales brochures said: Compo-Board walls and ceilings are ideal from every standpoint. Strength-They have actually held buildings together in California earthquakes. Durability-In houses lined with Compo-Board 12 to 13 years ago, they are all in good condition. Fire Resisting-They will hold a fire in check long after a plaster wall would crumble. Cold and Heat Resisting-They are absolutely air tight. Compo-Board walls as far north as Alaska are known to keep houses comfortable. Damp-proof-Thousands of houses are dry and sanitary. Moisture cannot penetrate Compo-Board. Compo-Board will help you get more business because with time being of essence, it will enable you to complete the work quicker than other contractors using lath and plaster.
The Northwestern Compo-Board Co. had a large factory adjoining the plant of C.A. Smith Lumber Co. at 44th and Lyndale Ave. N. and also did extensive business in the Northwest and in northern Europe.
With a recycled product that sounds this great, do they have anything like it today?
Note: Taken from A history of the Swedish-Americans of Minnesota and information supplied by Mrs. Judith Halvorson.