The Hattenberg Veneer Company was incorporated in 1890 in Marshfield, Wisconsin and manufactured veneers, plywood, cheese boxes, and cheese box stock. By 1893, the company faced bankruptcy due to lack of capital and failure of a customer indebted to the company. In March 1894, William Henry Roddis joined the firm as manager with an investment of $5000. William Henry Roddis was born in Troy, New York on January 5, 1844 and moved as a child to Milwaukee. Prior to moving to Marshfield, Wisconsin and graduation from the Milwaukee Academy, W.H. Roddis was active in real estate.
After the original plant burned down in April 1897, a larger plant was built allowing the business to expand and become a dependable manufacturer of veneers and plywood. This plant was operating by June 19, 1897 and W.H. Roddis bought the majority of the stock of Hattenberg Veneer Company changing the name to Roddis Veneer Company. In 1899, Hamilton Roddis, son of W.H. Roddis, left school and joined the company as secretary. In 1903, the company expanded into lumber products and the name was changed to Roddis Lumber and Veneer Company. This led to the purchase of timberland in Ashland and Iron Counties and construction of a sawmill in Park Falls, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Central Railroad built a railroad to bring this timber to the sawmill calling it the “Roddis Spur.” During 1907, both the plant in Marshfield and the sawmill in Park Falls were destroyed by fires. Both facilities were rebuilt as larger and improved facilities with sprinkler systems. By 1908, Roddis Company had developed the first solid core doors. Although the company did not invent the flush door, they manufactured them on a large scale. In 1906, an electrical sawmill was built at the Marshfield plant and the capacity at both the Marshfield and Park Falls saw mills increased to about 3,000,000 feet a month. During World War I, the Roddis Company was one of the largest manufactures of airplane plywood and sold to the governments of Italy, France, and the United States.
On November 6, 1920, W.H. Roddis died. His son, Hamilton Roddis, became the President of Roddis Lumber and Veneer Company and both he and his sister, Frances M. Roddis, inherited their father's interest. During the early 1920s, the company manufactured veneered panel doors, French doors, fancy veneered doors and 35% of all hardwood veneer doors in the United States at the time. Due to changes in the woodworking industry, shipping via the Panama Canal, and much of the furniture business moving to the Southeast, especially North Carolina and Virginia, the company lost a great deal of business. This led to the creation of a warehouse in Kansas City, Missouri and its incorporation as Roddis Lumber and Veneer Company of Missouri. The Kansas City Company successfully marketed and distributed the products from the Marshfield plant, but made money distributing non-competitive plywood, mainly fir and pine plywood manufactured on the West Coast. From 1926 to 1941, the success of the Kansas City Company led to the opening of similar warehouses and distribution centers in various parts of the country such as Chicago, New York, Cambridge, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Milwaukee.
During World War II, Roddis Company supplied wood products to the United States government and the Allies such as marine plywood for PT boats, interior plywood, panels, doors and bulkheads for hundreds of Liberty Ships, aircraft plywood and special birch plywood for the De Haviland Mosquito Bomber and Howard Hughes' HK-1 Flying Boat known as the Spruce Goose. In 1948, because of increased production during WWII, and the increased softwood plywood business, Roddis Company bought a controlling interest in the Humbolt Plywood Corporation, Arcata, California and changed their name to Roddiscraft Inc. The company produced softwood plywood at the rate of 50 million square feet per annum. In addition, from 1945 to 1948, Roddis Company bought many tracts of timberland in upper Michigan and a sawmill in Ironwood, Michigan. In 1946, Roddis Company entered into negotiations with the Canadian government for permission to cut some of the Dominion's Crown Timber Lands. In 1947, Roddis Company received a timber license from the Canadian government for 650 square miles and bought several private tracks of timber in Canada.
After doing business as Roddis Lumber and Veneer Company for forty-five years, the company changed its name to Roddis Plywood Corporation. Over sixty years of business, the main emphasis of the company was quality, as it strove to create products that were the best in their field. After the death of Hamilton Roddis in March 1960, the Roddis Plywood Corporation was sold to Weyerhaeuser Company in August 1960.
