It started as a rumor, one that had escalated before in the community, namely, “The Big Tupper Ski Area has been sold.”
This time, the rumor had panache, for it was further rumored that the forest property owned by family members of the former OWD Corporation that surrounded the ski area was also to be sold. Yes, Moody Pond, Cranberry Pond, Sugar Loaf Mountain, river and lake frontage and, even more intriguing as rumors go, the buyers were representing Robert Redford, owner of the fabulous Sun Dance Ski Area in Utah.
Aside from that latter embellishment, which turned out to be false and created good-natured amusement and wonder for the actual negotiators (one principal had, at a time, owned a home at Sun Dance), this later rumor was more sustainable.
Successive press releases confirmed that, yes indeed, great plans were in place to create a well-planned, seasonal home complex that included the reestablishment of the Big Tupper Ski Area.
Those lands have been owned by the OWD for almost a hundred years (1914). While older residents will easily identify or connect with that firm, its owners and possibly the property involved, perhaps readers new to the community or of a younger generation will be interested in a brief look that puts the spotlight on that venerable firm.
Established here in 1915, it was the largest lumbering firm ever to operate in this village as well as the largest industrial plant ever erected in Franklin County.
The company’s first land purchase here was encouraged by Ferris Meigs of the Santa Clara Lumber Company. It was, at the time, an investment with no plans to build a plant here. The land, some of which was owned by the Santa Clara Company, was called the Follensby Tract, “with the exception of Follensby Pond itself and its shoreline, together with a portion of the Mt. Morris tract and lands in Township 22 adjoining ‘the Follensby Pond tract.’” The company would eventually buy stumpage and land on tracts that would add up to 80,000 acres, much of it in Macomb Township 19, according to Barbara McMartin in her comprehensive history on the Adirondack lumber industry, The Great Forest of the Adirondacks. Ms. McMartin further noted that “the exhaustion of the timber supply and changing times caught up with the company in 1961 when it closed its Potsdam and Quebec plants and sold 20,000 acres of Adirondack timberland in 1964.
That year, the company also sold its Tupper Lake plant to the Adirondack Plywood Corporation, which quickly sold to U.S. Plywood. Note: That company invested $2,000,000 to modernize its operation here. Unfortunately, fire destroyed the large warehouses in 1967, and caused U.S. Plywood to curtail operations here.
Although smaller companies later occupied the site, large-scale manufacturing from hardwoods essentially ended.
With the sale of the OWD 40 years ago, a lasting influence and impetus to our cultural and economic vitality became an important page in the history of this town. Regional historian, the late Harry Landon, in his 1932 History of the North Country, offers us a profile of the founder, William Cary Hull. An excerpt from that account follows:
Among the principal industries of Franklin County and indeed in the front ranks with the chief wood-working plants in this section of the state is the Oval Wood Dish Corporation, Tupper Lake Junction, which William Cary Hull is president, Gerald P. Hull, vice-president and Henry C. Hull II, lumber sales manager.
William C. Hull, Sr. was the son of Henry S. Hull and Kathleen (Pfeiffer) Hull who was engaged in the mercantile business in Wauseon, Ohio. In 1833 he became interested in the manufacture of an oval wood dish that could be used by retail merchants as a receptacle in the sale of lard, butter and other similar items of merchandise and then discarded like a paper bag.
In 1887, he moved the manufacturing plant to Mancelona, Mich., and subsequently in 1992 to Traverse City, Mich., near the hardwood lumber supply, so necessary in the manufacture of his project.
The company, which had been a partnership, was incorporated under the name of the Oval Wood Dish Corporation. The Michigan company was also active in the hardwood lumber business and owned vast tracts of timber in the state. When plans were made to build a plant in Tupper Lake, Henry S. sent his son William C. to be in charge. William, a military school graduate who had played professional baseball for one year with the Jamestown Club, moved here in 1916, and in 1919 succeeded to the presidency of the company.
Note: William then built a strikingly handsome home on Water Street in the Junction. The present owners are the Cubby LaFrance family. It was, in my youth, a showplace unmatched by any other home in the community. The entry, which faced Water Street, was served by a porte chochere, through which ran a circular drive. A group of white pines dominated a spacious lawn, always carefully maintained.
To the rear of the house, a large glass-enclosed sunroom looked out upon a vast flower garden. Paths led through flowers of every color and variety, lovingly tended by Mrs. Hull (the former Katherine Lola Peckman of Mancelona, Mich.) and her team of gardeners. A long hedgerow of rose bushes led to a pond where Mrs. Hull had workers build stone benches placed in secluded nooks and crannies among the white pines surrounding the pond, a place of seclusion, rest and meditation. Note: The pond was formed when a large knoll was leveled for the fill it contained to prepare the low-level site for the plant under construction along Demars Boulevard. The resulting excavation filled with water from natural springs and seepage from nearby Racquette Pond.
Historian Langley listed Mr. and Mrs. Hull as parents of the following family:
- Henry C., who later became sales manager for the lumber department of the OWD;
- Gerald P., who became vice president and later succeeded his father as president after the latter’s death in 1941;
- Richard, who later owned a sign manufacturing company in West Winfield, N.Y.;
- William (Bill) C., Jr., who attended Cornell and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and who later was in the employ of F.L. Carlisle Company, bankers in New York City, and who eventually became vice president of the OWD; and
- Jane J., a graduate of Smith College, who later was engaged in secretarial work in New York City.
Note: The Hull family played a prominent role in the founding of the Tupper Lake Country Club. It may be worth noting that the first golf tournament held upon its official opening was won by Jane, also a star tennis player – beating all male opponents.
Mr. Langley concluded his profile of William Cary Hull, Sr., by pointing out that “Mr. Hull has always been a Republican. He is a past master of Traverse City Lodge F and A.M., a Knight Templar and is also a 32-degree Mason, a member of the Masonic Club of Tupper Lake. In 1907, Mr. Hull organized and was president of the North Branch Flooring Co. of Chicago. He is also an officer in two other lumber companies in Michigan. Mr. Hull’s recreation is golf and baseball.”