The '50s and '60s
During the 50's and 60's, our lumber shipments were predominately rail carloads of Douglas Fir, Hem-Fir, Ponderosa Pine, Cedar and Spruce from the West Coast lumber and plywood producers. Empire did a considerable "Transit Car" business, where we would speculate by rolling unsold carloads of lumber to Chicago for furtherance, and sell them in transit for fast delivery to our customers. Gradually, with the increase in popularity of Treated Deck Lumber, Empire started trading more Yellow Pine, both bright and treated, and at one time even manufactured our own Treated Lumber.
The '70s
During the 70's, bank interest rates skyrocketed to 22% and the cost of lumber increased, which in turn increased the customers cost of carrying inventories. This introduced overnight truckload shipments from remote break-bulk reload inventory yards. Empire was a pioneer in setting up reload distribution yards, strategically located across the United States and Canada. Not only did this help keep customers carrying costs down, but it also allowed us to offer preferred truckload tallies and mixed trucks of both sheet goods and dimension lumber.
The '80s and '90s
Gradually, Empire's customer base changed considerably with the advent of the "Big Box', Do-It-Yourself, national home center chain stores revolutionizing the retail lumber dealer business. Over the years smaller retail lumber dealers went out of business due to intense competition by the large lumber store chains and big retailers. Accordingly, Empire changed with the times and de-emphasized the dwindling West Coast transit car business.