Business and the New Economy News

Stimson Moves Forward With Auction for Mill and Materials at Bonner

By Robert Struckman, 10-01-08

Stimson Lumber Co. will go forward with plans to auction off its sawmill and plywood-making equipment at the former lumber mill just east of Missoula in Bonner in about two weeks, said Stimson’s Jeff Webber.

“It’ll be at the mill site. What it’ll be like is the auctioneer will come in and people will come over, and they’ll start from one end and go to the other, marking it all out in separate bid lots,” Webber said. The proceedings will be managed by Washington-based industrial auctioneer James G. Murphy Co. The two-day auction will start Oct. 14.

Terry Moore of James G. Murphy said he’ll advertise the event across North America. A similar auction at another mill in Washington drew about 200 bidders. Items for sale include debarkers, log loaders, edgers, trimmers and rip saws, band saws, hog-fuel chippers, compressors, planers, kilns, rail cars, boilers, overhead cranes and all manner of machine shop equipment.

“There’s always someone who’s looking for something like that, if you need that sort of thing,” Moore said. “There’s no minimums. Everything will go for what it sells for.”

Stimson had offered the land and all its buildings and equipment for $16 million. Others have expressed interest in buying the whole package, including local developer Scott Cooney. The former mill sits at the junction of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork rivers. For a period in the 1970s, it produced more board feet of plywood under its massive roof than any other plant on earth.

“We have several potential buyers looking at it,” he said. “But nothing firm yet.”

About Cooney’s bid, Webber had no comment.

As for Stimson, the company’s not out of the manufacturing game or out of Montana. The company recently purchased a mill in Idaho and holds lots of timber land in Montana.

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