Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Cooper, A. W. 1879 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com May 16, 2009, 11:57 am

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     A. W. COOPER.  As secretary of the Western Pine Manufacturers 
Association, A. W. Cooper is prominently identified with an industry which 
constitutes one of the chief sources of the wealth of this region, and for ten 
years Portland has numbered him among its influential citizens. A native of 
Denver, Colorado, he was born in 1879, a son of Albert and Charlotte E. 
(Williams) Cooper. His father was a well known mining engineer and operator to 
whom Leadville, Colorado, is indebted for its name. In later life he returned 
to Massachusetts and in that state A. W. Cooper was reared to manhood. He was 
graduated from Harvard University in 1901 and in 1903 completed a course in 
the Yale School of Forestry. For three years he was identified with the United 
States forestry service and then took charge of a tract of timber owned by the 
Delaware & Hudson Railroad Company, with which he spent two years. Reentering 
the government forestry service, he was stationed at Missoula, Montana, for a 
year and in 1910 became manager of the Western Pine Manufacturers Association, 
with headquarters in Spokane, Washington. He remained in that city until 1918 
and has since been a resident of Portland.

     Established in 1906, the Western Pine Manufacturers Association is the 
successor of the Western Pine Shippers Association, organized in 1901 and 
devoted exclusively to the production and marketing of pine. The Western Pine 
Manufacturers Association represents fifty-five lumber mills operating in 
Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana and producing over one billion, 
seven hundred and fifty thousand feet of lumber per year. The association has 
charge of the grading of lumber and publishes the grading and price rules, 
also doing all of the advertising and trade promotion work for the mills. It 
maintains a statistical bureau, a traffic department, a dry kiln department, 
and a research bureau supplied with a completely equipped laboratory. The 
association cooperates with the University of Idaho in plans for wood and 
forest preservation and has become a powerful agent in the development of the 
lumber industry of the Pacific northwest. It occupies a suite of eleven rooms 
in the Yeon building in Portland and has a force of competent engineers, 
employing thirty persons in all. During the World war the association did all 
in its power to aid the government and maintained an emergency bureau in 
Washington, D. C. The mills handle pine, cedar and larch timber, the last 
named being a new product which is rapidly coming into general use. A forest 
engineer of broad experience and pronounced ability, Mr. Cooper is ideally 
fitted for the work in which he is engaged and for eighteen years has been 
manager of the association, making it an organization second to none in 
efficiency of operation and standards of service.

     In 1908 Mr. Cooper was united in marriage to Miss Gertrude E. Homans, who 
is related to the Whitehouse and Cookingham families of Portland. She was born 
in Maine but was reared and educated in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Cooper 
casts his ballot for the candidates of the republican party but is not active 
in politics. He is serving on the forestry committee of the Chamber of 
Commerce and belongs to the Portland Golf, Waverly Country and University 
Clubs. For three years he has been a director of the National Lumber 
Manufacturers Association and is also a member of the advisory board of the 
American Railroad Association, acting as general chairman for the Pacific 
northwest. Mr. Cooper has chosen a vocation which affords the best medium for 
the expression of his talents and his labors have been of far-reaching 
importance and most beneficial in their effects, while his personal qualities 
are such as command respect and inspire confidence.

Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. II, 
Pages 705-706

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