Porterfield sawmill raises the stakes with local timber

PORTERFIELD – Thomas Wiedemeier doesn’t worry about tariffs or wood supplies thanks to an abundance of trees for lumber in northeast Wisconsin.
Thomas Wiedemeier Sawmill owner Thomas Wiedemeier said his wooden survey and fencing stakes are used for marking roadways and pouring concrete for large construction projects, including highways and subdivisions.

“The stakes are pounded into the ground. You put a board in the ground so you can pour concrete,” he described the products, which he makes by the thousands.

“We put 20,000 stakes on a load and ship it to Chicago,” he said.
“We’re having a very strong year.”

Wiedemeier relies on local loggers from Marinette, Florence and Oconto counties to supply the wood he uses, he said. He doesn’t need to be involved with cutting trees, he said, and he wouldn’t want to compete with his suppliers.
Besides the construction stakes experiencing strong demand, the company produces and sells dry sanitized pallets for the food industry, ax boards for ax-throwing establishments and dry mulch in multiple colors, said Sue Wiedemeier, Tom’s wife. The company is a third-generation family business with the first sawmill opened in 1915 by Tom’s grandfather Henry Wiedemeier.

Tom’s father Robert expanded into custom sawing before establishing the company’s location at N6480 Riverview Rd., Porterfield. He sold the sawmill to Tom in 1988. Tom and Sue’s oldest son, Troy, is next in line to manage the company, according to information on the company’s website.

With plenty of area lumber and local loggers, Tom Wiedemeier doesn’t need to cut timber from trees. The county forests produce the most wood and sell it to local logging companies at timber sales in the spring and fall, Wiedemeier said.

He then buys from the logging companies.

Lumber is among Marinette County’s largest industries, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. A Marinette County Forestry bid summary from a May 31, 2023, timber auction suggests bids can run up the price of the timber. At the auction, the county sold 2,364 acres of pulp wood at an average price per acre of $956, bringing in about $2.25 million, about 37% above the appraised value of $1.65 million. Demand was so strong, some companies walked away without completing a purchase.

Besides the county forests, Wisconsin has about 425 school forest parcels on 28,000 acres.

School forests exist in about 68 of the state’s 72 counties, the Department of Natural Resources said. “Most started out as tax-delinquent land the counties would give to the schools to use for school forests,” said Stephen Kaufman, DNR forester in Oconto Falls.

Timber sales are used when it’s time to thin the trees, Kaufman said.
“We take out lower value trees, leaving the best trees to grow for the future. It’s really a forest improvement each time. The school gets the values of those trees cut, which is cool because the students planted them so the school is getting the benefit all these years later,” he said.

He added that the DNR supplies free tree seeds for replanting.

The school forest program began around 1925 when H.L. Russell, dean of the College of Agriculture at UW-Madison was inspired by an Australian program where students planted trees on public land, according to an article in Wisconsin Woodlands’ Fall 2018 issue. Russell paired up with 4-H leader Wakelin “Ranger Mac” McNeel to engage Wisconsin students in replanting trees and their work led to the Wisconsin Community Forest Law, passed in 1927. The following year, the first school forests in the nation were registered in Forest County, according to the article.

School districts control school forests and can use them as outdoor classrooms, Kaufman said. The Crivitz School Forest, located in the Town of Stephenson, consists primarily of red pine and the school district uses the funds raised from timber auctions for educational purposes, he said.

At the Crivitz School Forest auction Oct. 13, the top bidder was Marshal Giese Trucking LLC at $40,270 and was followed by Wild Rivers Forestry at $39,745; Frank’s Logging at $38,766; Pomeroy Forest Products at $36,255; Bell Timber at $35,253 and Biewer Wisconsin Sawmill at $32,407, according to information the school district provided.

The high bid included about 1,050 tons of red pine for a bid price of $38.25 per ton or $40,162, the DNR said, while seven tons of mixed conifer went for $12 a ton or $84, and one ton of oak and one ton of mixed hardwood each went for $12 a ton for a grand total of $40,270. The timber volumes are estimates, Kaufman said.

“The actual amount of money the school receives will be based on how much timber is actually harvested,” Kaufman said in an email.

The winning bidder and contractor are expected to provide the school district with a 10% performance bond and will have two years to harvest the timber they bid on.

Wiedemeier said he pays about $120 to $150 per cord of wood, depending on the size and quality. A ton of red pine is about 2.25 cords, Kaufman said.
With plenty of available wood, Wiedemeier said he doesn’t worry about the tariffs affecting his business.

“All that it’s going to do is increase our productivity. Because we’re buying local, tariffs don’t affect us,” he said.

“If you’re buying from Canada, like competitors do, that’s going to affect them.”
The challenge Wiedemeier faces is being able to hire the workers he needs. He has about 15 workers but could use as many as 20, he said. He needs lumber pilers to stack the wood.

“It’s a very labor intensive business, and it’s hard to find employees,” he said.