Family Mill Goes Up In Smoke -- Stanwood Owner To Consider Rebuilding

STANWOOD - Since he was 10 years old, Gordon Beck has worked at his family's cedar mill, putting so much energy into building the business he's never had time to watch his son play a full game of football.

Now the Beck Mill is gone, burned to the ground in a weekend blaze. The mill, founded by Beck's father in 1950 and valued at $750,000 to $1 million, was uninsured. Most small mills can't afford fire insurance, local mill owners say.

Although shaken and depressed, Beck, 44, is trying to find an upside to his disaster. The fire began early Saturday, apparently caused by smoldering embers from a welding project.

"Maybe the one good thing about this is it will make me start caring about people again," he said yesterday, in a voice broken from smoke inhalation, too much talk and too little sleep.

This weekend, his son Ben, 14, is to play on Stanwood High School's freshman football team.

"I told him, `This time I'll be able to come to your game and watch the whole thing.' Usually I get there at the last minute and maybe see one play," Beck said.

The scent of fresh cedar nearly masks the smell of smoke and charred wood at the mill, on wooded property on 276th Street Northwest east of Stanwood. Mounds of untouched cedar sawdust surround the burnt buildings, reduced to little more than tin roofs collapsed upon mill machinery.

The business was founded by Jess "J.J." Beck, now 81, who still lives nearby. The Beck family owns 130 acres, including the mill. The original mill is long gone; Jess Beck began building the existing business in 1968 and passed it to his son in 1985.

Now the elder Beck is in poor health; he has a bad heart and recently had a stroke. But yesterday he walked over to watch the cleanup..

"I started it from the ground up," Jess Beck said. "It's kind of depressing for me to be over here."

For Gordon Beck, life always has included the mill. His boyhood heroes were the men who cut logs for his father.

He worked at the mill part-time through high school, then earned a business degree at Washington State University. He came home to help his father.

They considered the pros and cons of investing in fire insurance and decided against it, Gordon Beck said. "We decided if you're careful for 20 years you'll come out ahead."

A lot of mills have gone out of business in recent years, mostly because developers are using less solid-wood products in new developments, Gordon Beck said.

Now, he wants to clean up as soon as possible and study the possibility of rebuilding. If the county requires him to follow too many new regulations, it won't be affordable, he said.

"What I'm trying to do now is get the destruction out of my sight. When I look at it now it makes me pretty depressed," Gordon Beck said.

"Right now, we're looking at a catastrophe. Someday, I'm going to feel good - but it's not gonna be this week."