R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press In the company lumberyard at the south end of Main Street in Rapid River, Smith & Sons Lumber Co. co-owner Jack Smith lowers a bunk of lumber onto a truck bed using a forklift.

EDITOR NOTE: The Daily Press will be featuring a series of articles on local businesses, highlighting their history and what makes them unique. The series will run on a regular basis in the Daily Press.

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RAPID RIVER — Five years ago, Jack and Becki Smith took over a business that had been operating under the same name and one family for over a century. The location of the building supply store used to be the home of a sawmill; for generations after it was Anderson Lumber Co.; now, it’s Smith & Sons Lumber Co. 

In the late 1800s, when logging abounded in much of the Upper Peninsula, the head of Little Bay de Noc and its confluence of rivers were key to the industry. When ice broke up in the spring, logs that had been harvested in the winter would be sent down the Whitefish, Tacoosh and Rapid Rivers. One place they stopped was the mill pond behind what is now Smith & Sons. A concrete building that served as a finishing shop still stands on the property, and current co-owner Jack Smith said the remains of the sawmill sit closer to the waterfront. 

The Jerry Madden Shingle Co. operated in Rapid River from 1897 until 1917. They first worked exclusively with cedar, manufacturing shingles and ties, reported the Escanaba Morning Press in 1913. Their shingle mill was replaced with a “modern” sawmill in 1907, and after that point the Jerry Madden company produced lumber, lath, ties, posts and pulpwood.

Some products were collected by steamer at a dock in Rapid River and transported to Chicago and elsewhere. Jerry Madden’s dock also received wood, including cedar from Jos. F. Mallman by way of the Little Cedar River and the bay. Railroad tracks reached the mill, too.

In 1910, Jerry Madden sold most of its timberland to the Escanaba Lumber Co. but retained enough wood to operate their mill for several more years. In 1917, they sold out to the Collins Land and Lumber Company. Since forests had been pretty wholly depleted by this point, Collins ceased running the mill in 1926 and soon decided to liquidate.

“In 1931, Stone Anderson was induced to acquire and operate the sawmill,” and he was able to bring bustling business back, according to a 1936 article about Rapid River history in the Escanaba Daily Press.

Stone Anderson, an immigrant who left Sweden in 1902, was already called a “sawmill owner” back in 1920, but it is unclear where his other premises might have been. Reference was made in 1927 to the “Anderson Lumber Co. of Ensign,” so it’s possible he also owned another operation nearby from 1908, when Anderson Lumber is said to have been formed. (If a reader knows more details, please write to rbranstrom@dailypress.net.) 

Magnus Anderson, presumably Stone’s brother, was also part-owner of Anderson Lumber Co.

In 1936, Anderson Bros. of Rapid River, with a two-digit phone number, manufactured lumber and lath and sold other building materials, like shingles, cement and flooring. They had a woodworking shop that made windows, door frames and cabinets — Jack Smith believes this was housed in the cement building that previously served as the finishing shop.

Stone Anderson sold the mill to James Andrews in 1941 and then bought it back about five years later.

In 1949, Stone Anderson reported that his sawing and planing mill in Rapid River had produced four million board feet the previous year from soft logs purchased from the Buckeye mill in Gladstone.

Anderson Lumber Co. joined the Delta County Area Chamber of Commerce in 1976.

Among other local parties, Anderson Lumber Co. “contributed to help make Masonville Township a better place to live, work and play,” stated Masonville Township Supervisor Waldon “Punch” Johnson upon his retirement in 1984.

Gerry and George Anderson, Stone’s great-grandsons, were the faces of Anderson Lumber Co. in 2019 when customer Jack Smith, a residential carpenter, made an off-hand comment along the lines of, “Hey, if you’re ever looking to get out of the business and retire…”

It turned out that they were.

During the latter part of 2019, Jack and Becki met with the Andersons and began formulating their own business plan.

Both parties were eager to finalize the deal and planned to close on March 1, 2020. There was some holdup to do with financing, and the date got pushed back until April 1, but then —

“Well, what happened in March of 2020? The world closed down,” Becki said. “The bank put a hold on everything, said there’s too much risk… they literally stopped everything in its tracks.”

She said they had to fight to push things through, making calls to Lansing, etc., and doing a lot more work than they had expected. The deal finally became real on June 1.

The timing made for a unique experience. Because “non-essential” businesses closed, people weren’t working but were issued stimulus checks, and the lumber yard was considered essential and kept open, business at Anderson Lumber Co. went through the roof.

“(2020) was the best year on record for this place, because people had time off and extra money in their pocket,” Becki explained,

While waiting for the sale of the business to go through, the Smiths helped out with the work at Anderson Lumber. Jack made deliveries, and Becki worked in the office. Besides helping the Andersons manage the sudden demand, it also gave the Smiths a period to somewhat learn the ropes before they took the reins entirely.

It was a turnkey deal — they signed on the dotted line May 31, Becki recalled, and by June 1, she and Jack were running the store on their own.

Previously, Jack Smith had been a building contractor while working at the paper mill, which had then been Verso. After acquiring Anderson Lumber Co., he stopped bidding on jobs so as not to compete with customers.

Though the business started under the Smiths with a bang, difficulties arose soon after. There were extreme price fluctuations and unavailability of materials.

“There was just so much that changed in the industry so fast that the previous owners couldn’t even really guide us,” Becki said.

It was a new landscape; the Andersons’ experiences had been different. New logistics were in order.

The Smiths traveled to navigate the sparse supply chain. Though materials were hard to come by, they didn’t want to leave their new customers hanging.

“We would literally hop in our own truck with a trailer and drive to Wisconsin, sometimes as far as Chippewa Falls, just to get the material we needed,” Becki said.

The people who chose to hold off on major projects were then faced with a jump in interest rates.

Now, after five years, business is approaching what she hopes is “normal.”

After two years, in 2022, they finally changed the name from Anderson Lumber Co. to Smith & Sons Lumber Co. to reflect to the community that there had been a change in ownership. Some customers hadn’t realized the Andersons no longer ran the place, as there hadn’t been many visible changes when the Smiths came in. 

Updating systems had been the big thing. Becki said continual small projects contributing to an overall facelift of the place may occur in the near future.

People appreciate the old-school charm of the store, which is a full building center and hardware supplier, at the end of South Main Street. Smith & Sons is one of the few places that sells bulk nails by weight, rather than in prepackaged amounts. 

But it’s really the customer service, the knowledge of its staff, and the quality lumber – never “economy” wood – that sets Smith & Sons apart, Becki said.

Because they know they have other stores to compete with, Smith & Sons takes pride in doing what they can for the people who choose to shop with them.

“Being small and having multiple competitors very close by… we really, really have to focus on the customer service, and we try to keep our delivery fees reasonable,” Becki said.  

Typically, delivery range is within an hour – they travel to Garden, Cooks, Manistique, Trenary, Bark River – but have also gone farther, she said.

The other leg up Smith & Sons has is knowledge.

Jack had been a building contractor, and currently, he’s the building and zoning administrator for Delta County. One salesman has worked in the industry for over 30 years, another salesman had been a contractor for decades. The Smith sons, Jack and Becki’s boys who also work in the lumber yard and drive deliveries, used to help their father build and have grown up in that environment. Bookkeeper JoLee has been with the company since the Andersons owned it; she is part of that family.

Customers who frequent Smith & Sons Lumber Co. are varied, but there are a few types. There are local regulars, who come in frequently for small odd jobs. There are the seasonals – people who live elsewhere the rest of the year but return in the summers and find work to be done on their U.P. abodes. And then there are the building contractors.

“One of our goals was to bring on more contractors,” Becki said, “and we have at least doubled our contractors, if not more.”

Plus, of course, there is the sporadic newcomer, discovering the shop and stopping in for supplies.

Something new that Smith & Sons has brought in just within the last few months are the DAKA docks – roll-in, sectional and floating docks. There’s one out front of the lumberyard as a display, and Becki said people have come in to get a quote or to purchase one at least once a week.

Located at 10293 S. Main St. in Rapid River, Smith & Sons Lumber Co. is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday.