CEO of Allegheny Wood Products John Crites and his family announced this week plans to sell property in Tucker County to the United States Forest Service to be added to protected lands.
Monongahela National Forest will soon expand by roughly 2,700 acres.
CEO of hardwood manufacturer Allegheny Wood Products John Crites and his family announced this week plans to sell property in Tucker County to the United States Forest Service to be added to protected lands.
The property includes roughly five miles of land in the Blackwater Canyon, a gorge carved by the Blackwater River bordered by a scenic trail. The acquisition will expand public access to this land.
The purchase is funded by a federal grant program known as the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In a Monday press release, Sen. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., expressed his gratitude for the sale, and said estimates of the property’s cost are about $14 million.
“This is a huge win for the Mountain State and the nation as people are able to enjoy more of the true treasures of wild and wonderful West Virginia,” he said. ““When this deal is complete, it will provide wonderful outdoor recreation opportunities, which will strengthen opportunities for tourism, job creation and economic growth in the region.”
The property’s acquisition is expected to be finalized by the end of 2025.
Allegheny Wood Products announced it was closing its doors in February, laying off more than 900 employees. AHF Products, a wood flooring company, has agreed to acquire two sawmills from the defunct company.
Allegheny Wood Products announced it was closing its doors in February, laying off more than 900 employees. AHF Products, a wood flooring company, has agreed to acquire two sawmills from the defunct company.
Chief Operating Officer Jake Loftis said the acquisition will save an estimated 80 jobs that would have been lost last week.
“We are excited to add this capability to AHF and operate the mills at a capacity that will positively impact people and these two communities,” Loftis said.
Allegheny Wood Products was a supplier of lumber to the flooring company.
“It’s another key step to ensure AHF’s success now and in the future,” Lofits said.
The sawmills will now continue to supply lumber for AHF, a step the wood flooring company said was necessary for securing lumber supplies for current and future operations. The sawmills that will reopen are located in Greenbrier and Randolph counties.
AHF said West Virginia lumber could be used for other company locations in the future, although currently, it is not economical to do so.
Eastern hardwood has steeply declined in the last two decades, sitting at 40 percent of what it was in 2007.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia last week approved the sale of sawmills in Randolph and Greenbrier counties to a Pennsylvania flooring company.
Workers at two Allegheny Wood Products sawmills could get a reprieve after a federal judge approved the sale of those operations.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia last week approved the sale of sawmills in Randolph and Greenbrier counties to a Pennsylvania flooring company.
AHF will purchase the two sites from a court-appointed receiver for $7.5 million.
Allegheny Wood Products shuttered its operations in late February. In early March, United Bank, of Fairfax, Virginia, filed a lawsuit against the company, seeking $40.5 million in damages for unpaid principal and interest.
The sale could benefit only a fraction of the 900 Allegheny Wood Products workers who lost their jobs in February.
A worker in Mercer County filed a lawsuit in federal court last month, seeking class action status, alleging the company failed to provide 60 days notice before laying off workers.
Such warnings are required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN.
In the next part of our occasional series on the timber and forest products industry, we find out how timber cruisers — or procurement foresters — help landowners decide when to harvest trees in a timber stand, which trees to take and which ones to leave behind.
Independent producer Jean Snedegar joined Kelly Riddle, of Allegheny Wood Products, in early June at a privately owned forest near Kingwood, in Preston County.
“One of the interesting things about being a forester is that not every stand or site is the same,” he said. “You know, you walk to the other side of the hollow or the other side of the ridge, the site conditions change, the species change, the understory changes, and so it’s kind of a new canvas any place that you walk.”
Riddle said deciding on which trees to take depends on several factors.
Editor's Note: This story is part of an occasional series from independent producer Jean Snedegar about the timber and forest products industry here in the Mountain State — from seedlings to final products.
“One that we look at is, first of all if we’re dealing with a private landowner, what their goals and objectives are. Second, we look at merchantability of the trees. What I mean by that – is it useable for a commercial process – whether it be for saw timber, or pulp wood or some other product? And then we look at the overall health of the stand and the trees,” he said, looking around a stand of trees he’d marked.
“This stand is composed primarily of yellow popular and soft maple, with some scattered oaks in here. I look at the size of the trees as an indication of whether they’ve reached their biological maturity or financial maturity,” Riddle said.
“Generally, once a tree reaches about 18 inches in diameter – and this depends on the site it’s growing on and other factors – it’s probably reached its financial maturity – meaning, if you harvested that tree, gained the revenue from that tree, reinvested in something else, you could do better from a financial standpoint than if you left that tree to grow. Biologically, the tree may have 50 more years that it could live and produce wood and other values.
“The other thing we’re trying to do is create optimum growing space for the residual trees that you have.”
Age and Condition
Riddle walked up to tree in the stand.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A maple tree in the Allegheny Wood Products timber stand outside Kingwood, in Preston County, W.Va.
“This tree happens to be a yellow poplar – 24 inches in diameter. And given the age and condition of the stand I marked this tree because it’s mature, it’s ready to be harvested. And there are other trees adjacent to it – this hard maple for instance – that is one of the trees that I want to be the next stand,” he said. “So, by taking this yellow poplar out, it creates product for our sawmill and it also creates space for that maple to grow and be part of the next stand.”
When to Revisit a Timber Stand
Riddle said he typically goes back to any given stand about every five years to re-evaluate the growth and response since the last thinning.
“We typically look at a 12-15 year cycle of re-entry to harvest. In these stands that are even-aged – they were all re-generated about the same time – you can do that three or four times depending on the stands, the site and the characteristics of how good a site it is,” he said. “And then, towards the end of that 80 – 100 year period, you have to look at regeneration, maybe in the form of a ‘shelter wood’ type harvest, and get a more uneven aged management distribution.”
Riddle said a shelter wood-type harvest is a little more intensive harvest where you have fewer trees per acre that are remaining.
“It allows full sunlight to reach the forest floor, which most of our species here in Appalachia need in order to regenerate. All of our poplar, cherry, all of our oaks are shade-intolerant and they will not regenerate without that full sunlight, so it’s a requirement to initiate the next stand,” he said.
Signature Marking
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
One of Kelly Riddle’s timber marks. He uses a slash to indicate the tree has an imperfection or it should be cut and used for pulp.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Kelly Riddle uses a dot to indicate a tree should be cut and sent to a sawmill for board wood.
Walking through the forest, Riddle pointed out the various types of marks he has put on the trees. These marks tell the loggers which trees to cut – and whether they should go to the sawmill nearby or the pulp mill in Luke, Maryland.
“Foresters have their own signature way of marking. If I have a tree that’s primarily a saw timber tree, I’ll just put a dot, whereas a lateral slash may mean that there’s some imperfection in that tree, or that it’s a pulpwood, or a cull type tree. A full cull tree would be an ‘X’,” he said.
‘Bad Management’
Riddle said there are some misconceptions about what “bad” management is.
“Sometimes you have something that doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing and people might consider that to be bad management,” he said. “As foresters, we know that that’s not necessarily the case. There are some fairly intensive harvests where most of the material is removed that can be very good management, though it’s not aesthetically pleasing.”
Riddle said as a forester now for more than 30 years, the worst thing we can do is high-grade timber stands.
“That was a harvest philosophy where all you took was the best and left only the low-grade, non-commercial species – something like these soft maples that are damaged or have issues already. And all you were taking was the ‘cream’, so to speak,” he said. “If you do that more than one thinning cycle, then you’ve left a stand that has trees – it might look fine – but from a commercial standpoint, it has no value to the landowner.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A truck drives into the Allegheny Wood Products timber yard outside Kingwood, in Preston County, W.Va.
Riddle said we have a great resource in West Virginia as a whole.
“We say that we’re trying to provide a resource for today and manage it for future generations,” he said.
This series is made possible with support from the Myles Family Foundation.
A Preston County natural gas pipeline project that’s expected to create 25 jobs is receiving a $250,000 state grant.
On Thursday, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin visited the Allegheny Wood Products site in Hazelton to announce the grant.
The money will help extend a natural gas pipeline to the company. It’s expected to help increase lumber production there by 50 percent, from 20 million board feet annually to 30 million board feet.
The additional 25 jobs would increase the plant’s employment by more than 50 percent by the fall.
The gas line should be finished by September.
The extension will let the company replace diesel-powered kilns with natural gas-fueled ones.
The West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council grant will go to the Preston County Economic Development Authority.
