LOST COKATO: LUMBERYARDS

Museum Staff. "Lost Cokato: Lumberyards." In The Midst Of. Cokato Historical Society. (February, 2023) vol. 43, no. 1.

Cokato Lumber Company, located on corner of Jenks Avenue and Third Street SW.

For over a century, lumberyards played an integral role in the development of Cokato’s community. It’s hard to say who started the first lumberyard in Cokato. In the early 1880s, there were a smattering of very short-lived lumber yards, and many farms in the area had their own sawmills. In time, Cokato’s lumberyards were consistently housed at four        primary locations: Broadway Avenue and 1st Street SW; Millard Ave; Jenks Avenue and Third Street SW; and Century Avenue and 1st Street SW.

​​One of the earliest recorded lumberyards on Jenks Avenue was the Cokato Lumber Company. The business was in operation in 1889 and was located where Minkkinen Iron is today. By 1910, the business was owned by J. A. Eklund and Louis Johnson, and by 1917, the Trimble Brothers owned the business. At some point, it switched ownership to become the Newman Lumberyard. In 1924, J. F. Anderson Co, one of the largest firms in the Northwest, bought and ran the business until it closed in 1959. This was the last   lumberyard to work out of this location.

August Pearson opened the Farmers Lumber Company on Millard Avenue in 1917(where the Save and Share Thrift Shop is  today). In 1924, the Central Lumber Company bought out Pearson’s business and consolidated it with its other Cokato location on Broadway Avenue.

In 1969, Edwin and Tim Erickson and Martin Kotila opened the Cokato Lumber Company near Century Ave and 1st Street SW. In 1976, the business was purchased by Wayne and Reinhold Nordlund, and the name was changed to Cokato Building Supply Inc. In December of 1983, Carl Rokala purchased the business and changed the name to Rokala Lumber. The business remained open until approximately 1987.

The Broadway lumberyard location, just north of the railroad tracks, is the longest consecutive location to have a      lumberyard. The H. L. Harick Lumberyard is the first known lumberyard at this location. It first surfaces around 1899. Later, the building became the Emil and L. E. Larson’s lumber store. Larson sold the business to Central Lumber Co. in 1917. Around 1961, Standard Lumber acquired Central Lumber Co. and operated the business until it was sold to United Building Centers in 1986. In 2008, the business was acquired by Probuild, who then merged into Builder’s First Source in 2015. In April of 2022, Builder’s First Source closed its doors to the public, thus ending a long legacy of lumberyards in Cokato.