Our History

Lewis Lumber Products has its roots from Dwight Lewis Lumber Co., Inc. In 1941 Gleason Lewis built the first sawmill to take timber off the family farm in Sullivan County, PA. The business quickly expanded to purchasing timber from neighbors and supplying local businesses with high quality lumber. Following a fire in 1947, which completely destroyed the original mill, Gleason’s son, Dwight, stepped into the business to help rebuild the sawmill and continue expansion. Dwight Lewis Lumber Co. was formed and continued to acquire timberland to produce lumber for local and regional companies that have remained, even to this day, some of the company’s best customers. By 1966, the entire mill had been completely automated with a Line Bar Resaw, Automatic Carriage, Air Feed Works and a Slot Bin Sorter System. In the mid 70’s, Dwight’s’ two sons, Melvin and Marc, after graduating from Penn State University with degrees in Forestry, joined the company. Dehumidification kilns were built in 1985 and a wood fired boiler system was installed to supply steam to the kilns. Conventional kilns were added in 1992, while a fire destroyed the older dehumidification kilns in 1993. A new debarker and metal detector were added in 1995 and a second band resaw line was added in 1998. Another conventional kiln was added in 2000 along with a sorting line for grading kiln-dried production. 2001 saw the addition of a band saw head rig and an optimizing edger to increase yield, while maintaining production levels and the same quality strived for by Gleason Lewis in 1941. In 2005 a laser optimizer was installed to increase log yields on the head saw. In 2018, an upgrade to one resaw and changes to material handling improved efficiency in yield with gains in productivity. An optimizing edge was replaced in 2022. Dwight Lewis Lumber Co. remains the principal supplier of raw material to Lewis Lumber Products, Inc. Lewis Lumber Products was born with the 1984 purchase of Reese Lumber Co. of Williamsport by Dwight Lewis Lumber Co., Inc. In 1991, a classmate of Marc Lewis’ at Penn State, Keith Atherholt, was brought on board to manage the newly formed company. This company quickly became a successful service-oriented distribution yard and planing mill. The company operated in Williamsport, PA until the spring of 1997. A moulding company was purchased and the equipment was moved into the current location in Picture Rocks, PA. Since arriving, the operation has expanded with warehousing space and additional secondary processing equipment. In 1999, a high speed roughing planer was added to process planing orders more quickly. In 2000, another warehouse was built, which houses a sorting line for grading lumber and pulling selected orders. A optimizing ripping system, utilizing a moveable multiple blade ripsaw was installed in 2001, along with a optimizing chopping system. Two moulders were added in 2005 and 2007. In the summer of 2008, a new color scanning system was added to our optimizing ripping system. Our dust collection silo was replaced in 2013. A two-sided finish planer and 16” glue wheel were added to the dimension mill in 2018. The Optimizing ripping system was replaced with a new width scanning system and material handling in 2019. We also added computer workstations at each cell to track costing more efficiently. 2020 brought the COVID 19 pandemic and Lewis Lumber survived, as well as adding a new tally system! 2021 has allowed us to replace an aging flame suppression system on our dust collection. A chop to length system was also installed allowing precision end chopping to enhance current chop to length offers. The old sawmill building was converted over to a priming line including a new profile sander and priming machine. A Computer server and accounting software updates needed to be installed. ‘The 2022 year included an additional truck to our fleet and a new generation CNC knife grinder for the moulders. Our E-commerce venture, known as The Hardwood Rack was created online, and a room built to house it on the 2 floor of the office building above the store. Available on line at hardwoodrack.com for a variety of hardwood products.

Both Dwight Lewis Lumber Co. and Lewis Lumber Products are dedicated to providing high quality hardwood lumber and component products to the specifications required by our end users. We support sustained yield forest management and look forward to continuing the learning process, regarding, our stewardship role in the forests. The northern Pennsylvania forest around us is a healthy, well maintained, prolific and diverse temperate hardwood forest. It is renewable and sustainable, thus it is established as “Green Friendly” and offers products to the design community.