Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1907 — STORY OF A STURDY SWEDE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STORY OF A STURDY SWEDE.

■Remarkable Life of a Little Known Minneapolis Millionaire. Emigrant, coachman, multimillionaire! These are the three grades In the life of C. A. Smith, a Swede who lives in Minneapolis. Smith is only 54. end the next stage in'his life will be given iip to placing bis descendants on * rock of fortune that will endure for ranturies, perhaDs. The story of this sturdy, thrifty •Swede is one of the many stories of fortune which the Northwest loves to tell. Smith tumbled off an emigrant train In Minneapolis on June 28, 1867, ■it the age of 14. He was a strong boy, without a word of English, but In a day ar two he went to work as a chore boy at the home of ex-Governor Pillsbury. 61s native name was unpronounceable,

•o be became Smith. Soon he was good to drive the coach. He went to •chool a little, and then entered PI 11abury's hardware store. Finally Smith went Into the-Vtara business himself, with Plllsbury as his partner. It was at Herman, Minn., and they sold grain, lumber and farm implements. Every year the young man was gaining business wisdom, putting more money away, end becoming Americanized. In a few years the country store was too small for his activities. He went hack to Mlnenapolls, and the first of the C. A. Smith lumber mills started to cut logs In 1884. The business grew, and the mills with It, until they soon were the largest In the world. In 1880 Mr. Bm!th bought out the Plllsbury Interests In the business. Since then the big company has been composed of hat one man, C. A. Smith, who says be be-

lleves he owns more standing timber to-day than any other one man. Either Mr. Smith or James B. Walker of Minneapolis owns most. It is a question of which is entitled to the title of “largest” owner in the world. When the vast woods of Minnesota and Wisconsin began to disappear Mr. Smith led the way to the wooded slopes of the Pacific, where he now owns more millions of standing trees than his mills can convert into lumber during his lifetime. And well aware of this fact. He admits it, and is buying more every week, almost every hour. He declares he will never sell a single acre of timber land. His aim is to secure enough standing timber so that his sons and their sons and grandsons may make planks and shingles from the family forests long after the rest of the North American continent has been denuded. In 1878 Mr. Smith married Johanna Anderson, whose parents came from Wermeland, Sweden. They have five children.

C. A. SMITH.