History (original) (raw)
History
It was in the wake of the devastating Seattle Fire of June 1889. All of downtown Seattle had been destroyed . Jacob Nist’s employer, Seattle Lumber and Commercial Company had fallen victim to the blaze. This prompted Jacob and his son Michael to launch a new enterprise making wooden products such as egg crates. They established the Queen City Manufacturing Company, parent company for Seattle Tacoma Box Company.
Not all ran smoothly for them. Fire would once again do major damage to Jacob’s livelihood, in fact the company endured major fire damage four times in its first 31 years of operation. Other obstacles would include the Great Depression of 1929, labor unrest in the Pacific Northwest, skyrocketing lumber prices, and yet another fire in 1973. These and other challenges, not the least of which was stiff competition from much larger corporations, would jeopardize the company’s very existence. Yet the company endured, and evolved into the multifaceted organization that exists today as Seattle-Tacoma Box Company.
Operations are headquartered in Kent, Washington, situated midway between the two larger cities comprising the company’s name. Several other manufacturing facilities and distribution centers are scattered throughout Washington, California, Alaska and Hawaii and a cut stock operation in Tauranga, New Zealand. The California division, SeaCa Packaging, specializes in agricultural containers. While agricultural packaging, corrugated boxes and the like have always been Seattle Tacoma Box Company’s mainstays, it is in a particularly uncharacteristic product – concave blocks and straps to contain expensive steel tubulars for petroleum exploration and production – that the company takes great pride.
The venture began when a major oil company asked if it could store some of its North Slope pipe on the company’s property near Prudoe Bay, Alaska. Seeing that much of the pipe material was being lost to damage in transport and on the site, Seattle Tacoma Box Company designed a packaging and containment system that was reasonably flexible for placement on uneven terrain, separated pipe sections from each other, could be loaded by forklift in a matter of minutes, could be stacked indefinitely and provided significantly greater safety in handling.
The Product proved highly successful, and opened exciting new business for Seattle Tacoma Box Company that quickly spread to Europe and the Pacific Rim, including deliveries to offshore platforms.
Beginning with Jacob, six generations of Nist family members have made contributions to the success of Seattle Tacoma Box Company. Following in Jacob’s footsteps have been two sons, four grandsons, three great-grandsons, three great-great-grandsons, and the latest generation represented by a great- great-great-grandson named after the founder himself.