ORWW Elliott State Forest: History: Lansing

Elliott State Forest History: Bill Lansing

Bill Lansing with Fall Chinook caught in Coos Bay, October 2016. Photo is by his son, Brent Lansing.

William "Bill" Lansing is a retired CEO and President of Menasha Forest Products, based in North Bend. He moved to this community in 1970 after graduating from Yale University and has written a number of family and regional histories since his retirement. He has made his book regarding national and regional CCC history, Camps and Calluses, available to this website in digital format. This book, and several others written by Lansing, can be purchased by contacting bill@billlansing.com.

Other books by Bill Lansing include:

Seeing The Forest for the Trees: Menasha Corporation and It's One Hundred Year History in Coos Bay, Oregon 1905-2005. 2005. This is the history of 100 years of timberland ownership and mill investments by the Menasha Corporation and the other timber companies and midwest timber barons who dominated southwestern Oregon forestlands in the 20th century.

Can't You Hear the Whistle Blowin’: Logs, Lignites and Locomotives in Coos County, Oregon. 2007. This is the history of the railroads that helped develop the timber and coal resources of Coos County, Oregon from 1850 to 1930. It includes a 1919 map of Coos County with all the logging railroads shown. Each locomotive that worked the woods and coal mines of Coos County is fully described.

Remember When: Coos County, Oregon Schools 1850-1940. 2008. This book documents all the one-room school houses in Coos County around the turn of the 20th century. There were 91 school districts and one county superintendent; today there are six school districts -- each with their own superintendent and staff.

Honoring Our Past, Lighting the Future (1961-2011): A 50-year History of Southwestern Oregon Community College. 2011. This 192-page commemorative book honors the 50th Anniversary of Southwestern Oregon Community College.

Camps and Calluses: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Southwestern Oregon. 2014. This book discusses what lead up to the Great Depression, and where and how the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) camps in southwestern Oregon played their part in President Rooseveldt's "New Deal" in the 1930s.

Gone Fishin' Volume 1: It Takes a River to Make a Fish. 2018a. This volume pays tribute through stories and photographs of the five species of the Pacific Salmon, and how they arrived and evolved in the rivers of Oregon.

Gone Fishin' Volume 2: It Takes a Watershed to Make a River. 2018b. This volume pays tribute to the individual westward-flowing Oregon rivers from the Umpqua on the north to the Winchuck on the south near the California border. Of particular interest to Elliott State Forest studies are the chapters on the Coos-Millicoma (pp. 110-155) and Umpqua main stem (pp. 156-189) river basins.

The Mills That Built Coos Bay, Oregon and The Men Who Made It Happen. 2020. This is the comprehensive and definitive history of the Coos Bay sawmilling history of Coos Bay. Of particular interest to Elliott State Forest studies is the chapter on the Buehner Lumber Company (pp. 274-288) and its base on Clarence Gould property in Allegany.