Built by industrialists whose early businesses contributed to the escalation of the Industrial Revolution, company towns flourished in countries that embraced capitalism and open-market trading. In many instances, the company town came to symbolize the wrecking of the environment, especially in places associated with extractive industries such as mining and lumber milling. Some resident industrialists, however, took a genuine interest in the welfare of their work forces, and in a number of instances hired architects to provide a model environment. Overtaken by time, these towns were either abandoned or caught up in suburban growth. The most thorough-going and only international assessment of the company town, this collection of essays by specialists and authorities of each region offers a balanced account of architectural and social history and provides a better understanding of the architectural and urban experiences of the early industrial age.

When Frederick Weyerhaeuser and his midwestern associates purchased 900,000 acres of western Washington timberland from the Northern Pacific Railway Company in 1900, the initial question was, who would manage the property? Recommended as a valued employee by one of the associates, George S. Long (1853-1930) was hired by Weyerhaeuser on a trial basis. The sheer breadth of Long's responsibility was amazing. Not only was this the largest such purchase in American history, but for the investors that amounted to a giant leap in the dark. They knew next to nothing about the details of their ownership, and Douglas-fir was an unfamiliar species. And where were the markets? Long's first job was to get acquainted with the land, the people, and forestry methods. He soon realized that diplomatic skills would be far more useful in the beginning than would expertise in lumber. The Weyerhaeuser Timber Company was not initially involved in manufacturing, but by the end of Long's career, modern Weyerhaeuser mills were in operation at Everett, Longview, and Snoqualmie Falls in western Washington, and at Klamath Falls, Oregon. Each was a self-sufficient, integrated unit, with enough timber in reserve to maintain operations for a significant period, even without reforestation. But the possibility of reforestation fueled Long's imagination. He recognized that the challenge was to maximize the Pacific Northwest's huge forest-growth capacity - a challenge that continues to this day. Appointed at a time when Frederick Weyerhaeuser was still clearly in charge, Long quickly earned his trust. In a few brief years he had become indispensable. In the Pacific Northwest he was not only "Mr. Weyerhaeuser" but the oneto whom others in the industry looked for leadership. Under his aegis, the Washington Forest Fire Association came into being, soon to be followed by the Western Forestry and Conservation Association. And in the 1920s he led in creating the West Coast Lumbermen's Association. Charles Twining traces Long's life from his childhood in Indiana and experience with the hardwood lumber business through his decades as a major figure in the Northwest lumber industry. In researching this book, Twining had access to the Weyerhaeuser Company Archives, including all of George S. Long's correspondence over a period of almost thirty years. The book is based largely on primary sources.

“Company town.” The words evoke images of rough-and-tumble loggers and gritty miners, of dreary shacks in isolated villages, of wages paid in scrip good only at price-gouging company stores of paternalistic employers. But these stereotypes are outdated, especially for those company towns that flourished well into the twentieth century. This new edition updates the status of the surviving towns and how they have changed in the fifteen years since the original edition, and what new life has been created on the sites of the ones that were razed. In the preface, Linda Carlson reflects on how wonderful it has been to meet people who lived in these towns, or had parents who did, and to hear about their memorable experiences.

The American West, from the beginning of Euro-American settlement, has been shaped by diverse ideas about how to utilize physical space and natural environments to create cohesive, sometimes exclusive community identities. When westerners developed their towns, they constructed spaces and cultural identities that reflected alternative understandings of modern urbanity. The essays in City Dreams, Country Schemes utilize an interdisciplinary approach to explore the ways that westerners conceptualized, built, and inhabited urban, suburban, and exurban spaces in the twentieth century. The contributors examine such topics as the attractions of open space and rural gentrification in shaping urban development; the role of tourism in developing national parks, historical sites, and California's Napa Valley; and the roles of public art, gender, and ethnicity in shaping urban centers. City Dreams, Country Schemes reveals the values and expectations that have shaped the West and the lives of the people who inhabit it.

From his command post in a downtown Kansas City skyscraper, the nation's foremost lumberman, R.A. Long, received the devastating report from his company's timber scouts in 1918: his sources for raw material were nearly exhausted. The once-lush pine and oak forests of the Mississippi Delta had been stripped clean and converted into farmland. Now, his Long-Bell Lumber Company was at a crossroads. The timber baron put the question to a vote by his board of directors: disband or build the world's largest lumber mill somewhere else? This group of middle-aged men looked upon R.A. Long as a father figure and a proverbial King Midas, able to turn wood into gold. Their decision was easy: they wholeheartedly endorsed the plan to build. And their vision became the Longview story, combining social engineering, modern marketing, and a whole lot of money into a 20th-century urban success story.