Seattle-Tacoma Box Company
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Seattle-Tacoma Box Company is a pioneering
Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
company established in 1889 by Jacob Nist and his sons as "Queen City Box Manufacturing Company." For over a century, the Nist family has continuously owned, managed, and operated the company, producing wooden crates, boxes, containers, and other wood products. Renamed "Seattle Box Company" in 1905, the business purchased a second manufacturing facility in
Tacoma Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, northwest of Mount ...
in 1922. The two enterprises merged efforts in 1975 as "Seattle-Tacoma Box Company," opening a new plant in
Kent, Washington Kent is a city in King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. It is part of the Seattle metropolitan area, Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue metropolitan area and had a population of 136,588 as of the 2020 Unit ...
. Governor
Booth Gardner William Booth Gardner (August 21, 1936 – March 15, 2013) was an American politician who served as the 19th governor of Washington from 1985 to 1993. He also served as the ambassador of the GATT. A member of the Democratic Party, Gardner previ ...
honored the Nist family and the company on its centennial in 1989, proclaiming the pride of the citizens of Washington for the company's "contributions to the economy of the state". In addition to wooden boxes and crates, today the company produces packaging supplies, bags,
strapping Strapping, also known as bundling and banding, is the process of applying a strap to an item to combine, stabilize, hold, reinforce, or fasten it. A strap may also be referred to as ''strapping''. Strapping is most commonly used in the packagi ...
,
pallets A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. Many pallets can handle a load o ...
, fuel pellets, portable moving and storage vaults, and seafood containers.


Queen City Box Manufacturing, 1889 to 1905

Jacob Nist, a farmer and
grocer A grocery store (American English, AE), grocery shop or grocer's shop (British English, BE) or simply grocery is a retail store that primarily retails a general range of food Product (business), products, which may be Fresh food, fresh or Food p ...
from Philadelphia, migrated to Seattle with his wife and seven children by 1880 and initially took up farming. He and his sons soon found work in the lumber mills. Nist worked for three years as a
turner Turner may refer to: People and fictional characters * Turner (surname), a common surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Turner (given name), a list of people with the given name *One who uses a lathe for tur ...
at the Stetson-Post Mill Company in Seattle, and his sons found employment as
carpenters Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters trad ...
and mill engineers. By 1888, Nist and his sons Michael, Jacob J., George, and Aloys were all working at the Seattle Lumber and Commercial Company, which was operating 20 hours per day and had added a new box factory. That mill was destroyed on June 6, 1889, in the
Great Seattle Fire The Great Seattle Fire was a fire that destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle, Washington, on June 6, 1889. The conflagration lasted for less than a day, burning through the afternoon and into the night, during the same summer ...
, along with every other mill and
wharf A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more Berth (mo ...
between Union and Jackson streets, as well as most of downtown Seattle. To continue providing for the family after the fire, Nist and sons established the Queen City Box Manufacturing company and began production in October 1889. The original Queen City Manufacturing facility was next to the Nist family home on the shore of
Lake Union Lake Union () is a freshwater lake located entirely within the city limits of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is a major part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which carries fresh water from the much larger Lake Washington on the east t ...
. The company started slowly, and according to the Seattle City Directory three of Nist's sons, Michael, Jacob J., and John were also employed in 1890 by Skookum Manufacturing Company, another local sawmill. The company made
millwork Millwork is historically any wood-mill produced decorative material used in building construction. Stock profiled and patterned millwork building components fabricated by milling at a planing mill can usually be installed with minimal alterat ...
,
sashes A sash is a large and usually colorful ribbon or band of material worn around the human body, either draping from one shoulder to the opposing hip and back up, or else encircling the waist. The sash around the waist may be worn in daily attire, ...
, and door frames. The Nists incorporated the company two years into
production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stat ...
, in November 1891, with $10,000 capital, 100
shares In financial markets, a share (sometimes referred to as stock or equity) is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation. It can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Sha ...
at $100 each. The company objectives were to "manufacture, buy, sell and deal in all kinds of lumber, sashes, doors, window blinds, molding, stairs, stair rails and banisters, and all kinds of woodwork and finishing material−to operate sawmills,
sash A sash is a large and usually colorful ribbon or band of material worn around the human body, either draping from one shoulder to the opposing hip and back up, or else encircling the waist. The sash around the waist may be worn in daily attire, ...
and door factories, shingle mills, box factories, and to build houses, deal in timber and own land." Seattle experienced rapid growth in the 1890s, as did the new company, despite the temporary setback caused by the economic
panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States. It began in February 1893 and officially ended eight months later. The Panic of 1896 followed. It was the most serious economic depression in history until the Great Depression of ...
, which hit the
Northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...
hard. The Klondike Gold Rush began in 1897, and according to journalist J. Kingston Pierce, "
Elliott Bay Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s ...
became the frenzied embarkation point for tens of thousands of
miners A miner is a person who extracts ore, coal, chalk, clay, or other minerals from the earth through mining. There are two senses in which the term is used. In its narrowest sense, a miner is someone who works at the rock face (mining), face; cutt ...
shipping north." The miners provided additional business for Seattle companies that, in turn, required boxes and crates for their products. In 1903, Queen City Manufacturing Company even acquired a mine formerly owned by the Horseshoe Mining Company in
Whatcom County, Washington Whatcom County (, ) is a County (United States), county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington, bordered by the Lower Mainland (the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Regional Districts) of the ...
.


Seattle Box Company, 1905 to 1920

Michael J. Nist became company president in 1905, but years before that he had become the major decision-maker of the business. Company founder Jacob Nist died in 1907, after almost six months' illness. By that time, the company had been renamed Seattle Box Company, reflecting the chief products of the company: crates, boxes, and shooks. (A ''shook'' is a set of wooden staves and headers, for assembling a
barrel A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden stave (wood), staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers ...
or cask.) The company was constructing a larger plant on the
tidal flats Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...
of
Elliott Bay Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s ...
in South Seattle. The
building permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to buil ...
allowed three structures: a factory building, a dry
kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...
, and boiler room. A photograph by ''
Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is an American daily newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1891, ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Time ...
'' photographers Ira Webster and Nelson Stevens, circa 1905, shows the company surrounded by water, the only building in the area, accessible via a railroad trestle, a
causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet T ...
built across the bay, and by a 30-foot motor
launch Launch or launched may refer to: Involving vehicles * Launch (boat), one of several different sorts of boat ** Motor launch (naval), a small military vessel used by the Royal Navy * Air launch, the practice of dropping an aircraft, rocket, or ...
kept under the building. Two fires during this period, in 1908 and 1920, destroyed Seattle Box Company's mill building, machinery, and
stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...
. The company used insurance reimbursements to re-build each time, and by 1916, assets had more than tripled, from the original $10,000 investment to over $30,000. Seattle Box Company continued production through
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, running three shifts per day. Michael Nist stepped down as company president in 1920, selling his company shares to his sons Ferdinand and Joseph. He continued writing company checks through 1930 and died in 1932.


Seattle Box Company and Tacoma Box Company, 1920 to 1970

In 1920, Ferdinand J. Nist ("F.J.") became the third president of the company. He was a graduate of Seattle College and had learned the family business when he trained "as an ordinary workman" at the company.


Seattle plant expansion and Tacoma plant purchase in the 1920s

In 1922, the manufacturing plant in Seattle was increased in size to a three-story cutting and assembling facility. The new plant occupied an entire city block, and the company's motto was, "A good wood box for the purpose intended at a fair price." The company purchased Calef Box Company in Tacoma in 1922. Joseph Nist undertook the management of it as Tacoma Box Company while planning a new facility. Before the plant was completed, however, Joe Nist died in a
drowning Drowning is a type of Asphyxia, suffocation induced by the submersion of the mouth and nose in a liquid. Submersion injury refers to both drowning and near-miss incidents. Most instances of fatal drowning occur alone or in situations where othe ...
accident during a family picnic in 1926, at age 37. Tacoma Box Company moved into new facilities in 1928, under the management of Leo Nist. In this decade Seattle Box began modernizing, replacing two horse-drawn delivery carts with its first truck, a chain-driven
Pierce-Arrow The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company was an American Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, active from 1901 to 1938. Although best known for its expensive Luxury vehicle, luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manuf ...
. By the end of the decade, the truck fleet also included a
Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...
and three
Kenworth Kenworth Truck Company is an List of American truck manufacturers, American truck manufacturer. Founded in 1923 as the successor to Gersix Motor Company, Kenworth specializes in production of heavy-duty (Truck classification#Class 8, Class 8) ...
trucks built in nearby
Kirkland, Washington Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. A suburb east of Seattle, its population was 92,175 in the 2020 U.S. census which made it the sixth largest city in King County and the twelfth largest city in the state of Washington. ...
. Since horses were no longer needed for delivery, the old
stables A stable is a building in which working animals are kept, especially horses or oxen. The building is usually divided into stalls, and may include storage for equipment and feed. Styles There are many different types of stables in use tod ...
under the plant were converted to a dry kiln, which allowed the inventory to include a larger variety of dry lumber stock, and ended the need for a lengthy storage period to air-dry the company's large inventory, of lumber. Other equipment modernization in the twenties included a new Stetson-Ross planer, two Mershon
resaw A resaw is a large band saw optimized for cutting timber along the grain to reduce larger sections into smaller sections or veneers. Resawing veneers requires a wide blade – commonly 2 to 3 inches (52–78 mm) – with a small kerf to ...
machines, a new lumber carrier, and a new two-color modern design printer for boxes and crates. During the twenties, the Nists also made a strategic decision to serve customers who had to order boxes in small lots, identifying a
niche market A niche market is the subset of the market on which a product is appealed to a small group of consumers. The market niche defines the product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the ...
. (Larger companies usually specialized in specific types of boxes, and required large orders to keep costs down.) The business that began in 1889, with four employees, had over a hundred people on the payroll by 1924, and had an extensive business in California and Hawaii. By 1927, ''Northwest Daily Produce News'' reported Seattle Box had orders from the
West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
for butter boxes made of odorless
spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...
, as well as another large order from a local creamery to box premium
Edam cheese Edam ( ) is a semi-hard cheese that originated in the Netherlands, and is named after the town of Edam in the province of North Holland. Edam is traditionally sold in flat-ended spheres with a pale yellow interior and a coat, or rind, of red pa ...
. In 1928, Seattle Box Company bought a
steam whistle A steam whistle is a device used to produce sound in the form of a whistle using live steam, which creates, projects, and amplifies its sound by acting as a vibrating system. Operation The whistle consists of the following main parts, as s ...
from a
Yukon River The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. From its source in British Columbia, it flows through Canada's territory of Yukon (itself named after the river). The lower half of the river continues westward through the U.S ...
boat to mark starting and stopping times seven times daily—at five and six and seven a.m., at noon, one, four, and five o'clock. This "particularly throaty" steam whistle could be heard across a 12-mile (19 km) radius from the plant in downtown Seattle until it was finally retired in 1961, the last steam whistle in Seattle.


Great Depression and labor unrest in the 1930s

From the beginnings of the family business, the Nists owned their business property and equipment outright. The company survived the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
partly because they had avoided debt, partly because they did cost studies and priced products carefully and accurately, and partly because they designed containers for individual customers rather than specializing in a limited product line. The company dealt with recurring challenges during this decade:
collections Collection or Collections may refer to: Computing * Collection (abstract data type), the abstract concept of collections in computer science * Collection (linking), the act of linkage editing in computing * Garbage collection (computing), autom ...
were slow and prices were reduced to maintain business; the
National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governmen ...
controlled both prices and profits under the code of fair competition for lumber and timber products; there were three small fires at the Seattle plant in the thirties; and
labor unrest A labour revolt or workers' uprising is a period of civil unrest characterised by strong labour militancy and strike activity. The history of labour revolts often provides the historical basis for many advocates of Marxism, communism, socialism, a ...
resulted in unionizing the workforce, with a 6-week
strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) * Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm * Airstrike, ...
in 1935 as well as a week-long walkout in 1937. In spite of his previous "hands off" policy toward
union organizing A union organizer (or union organiser in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. In some unions, the organizer's role is to recruit ...
, Ferdinand Nist became the lead negotiator for industry in the Pacific Northwest, settling with the Sawmill and Lumber Workers of the
American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...
. Rotting timbers in an aging
foundation Foundation(s) or The Foundation(s) may refer to: Common uses * Foundation (cosmetics), a skin-coloured makeup cream applied to the face * Foundation (engineering), the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads f ...
caused a potentially serious collapse of the Seattle plant in 1935. It completely buried one man in sawdust and endangered others who were partially buried. Fortunately, all the buried men were rescued without serious injuries, and the plant was almost immediately re-built on new foundation timbers. Eugene M. Nist (Gene) began managing the Tacoma plant in 1938. With seven employees, and only the plant supervisor and himself on the regular
payroll A payroll is a list of employment, employees of a company who are entitled to receive compensation as well as other work benefits, as well as the amounts that each should obtain. Along with the amounts that each employee should receive for time ...
, Gene took on the role of manager, but also " bookkeeper,
buyer Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. The term may also refer to a contractual o ...
, labor negotiator, and troubleshooter". He scrounged for orders, eventually producing furniture frames for upholstered sofas and box springs. Even with the challenges of the 1930s, Seattle Box Company kept paying
dividend A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. The market has no control over the stock price on open on the ex ...
s on its stock during the decade. In 1938, company president Ferdinand Nist explained in a radio interview that the family company "used 12 million feet of spruce and hemlock per year, all produced within of Seattle."


World War II effort of the 1940s

During World War I, the company had heavy demand for boxes and crates, so early in the 1940s, Seattle Box began gearing up production, anticipating an increased need for the war effort. The company provided two and a half million boxes during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, for transportation of munitions, food, and supplies. ''The Northwest Veteran'' saluted the company for "the monumental part this company played in the prosecution of the nation's war program in World War II," citing the quality and reliability of its products. Even though both plants were busy during the war, the company did not prosper in the forties due to shortages of lumber and labor as the country's
workforce In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed): \text = \text + \text Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...
went to war. Minutes of the 1946 stockholders' meeting show the company's lumber inventory had been reduced, from over 3 million board feet in 1942, to just over a million in 1946. After the war, there was pent-up demand not only for boxes and crates but also for furniture that the Tacoma plant had been producing. The company expanded to produce box springs and began an effort to improve the handling of lumber to be kiln-dried. Both plants also continued to replace aging
steam engines A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
and
boilers A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, central ...
with electrical mill machinery. But there were no
dividends A dividend is a distribution of profits by a corporation to its shareholders, after which the stock exchange decreases the price of the stock by the dividend to remove volatility. The market has no control over the stock price on open on the ex ...
distributed to stockholders for 1946. The trends of the decade were higher wages, shortages of materials, higher prices, and heavy competition, especially from local non-unionized factories.


Changing times in the 1950s

Company profits remained low in the early 1950s. In 1951, Seattle Box reported a loss for only the second time in sixty-two years of operation. A labor strike in 1950 and a 1954 two-month strike affected profits by raising the basic
wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work (human activity), work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include wiktionary:compensatory, compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailin ...
to $1.905 per hour. Seattle Box and Tacoma Box sought new products and more efficient ways to produce them. Wooden boxes continued to be the main product, but paper and
corrugated cardboard Corrugated fiberboard, corrugated cardboard, or corrugated is a type of packaging material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on "flute lamination machines" or "corrugators" and is used for maki ...
boxes were beginning to affect demand. The Tacoma plant set up a round
conveyor system A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving the transport of heavy or bulky materials. Conveyor systems allow ...
, which was then also implemented in the Seattle plant. The company adopted a new system for coloring boxes in 1957, and in 1958, began using clamp gluing and bulk shipping fasteners developed by
North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the F- ...
. The Seattle and Tacoma plants both needed continuous foundation repairs. The company continued its focus on specialty wood products in the 1950s, adding
paneling Panelling (or paneling in the United States) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to ...
,
siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) In rail terminology, a siding is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch lin ...
, and furniture assembly parts, as well as large crates for bulk shipping. According to ''Wood and Wood Products'' magazine, "Besides boxes, crates, delivery cases and crating lumber, the company also manufactures such apparently non-related items as bed frames, furniture stock, bread boxes, household bins, bed slats, fence pickets, bird houses, and hanging planter baskets." Manufacture of furniture stock (such as overstuffed furniture frames) accounted for 20 percent of the firm's business by 1959, with the total payroll for both plants more than 100 employees. In the late 1950s, Ferdinand J. Nist, Sr.'s sons Emmet and Eugene assumed more responsibilities for company management. Ferdinand, Jr., left
Central Washington University Central Washington University (CWU) is a public university in Ellensburg, Washington, United States. Founded in 1891, the university consists of four divisions: the President's Division, Business and Financial Affairs, Operations, and Academi ...
for night classes at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
, and also began working full-time at the Seattle plant in 1958, at age 20.


Revolution in the industry and PerfectioNIST brand in the 1960s

By the early sixties, high lumber prices and competition from new materials, such as
fiberboard Fiberboard (American English) or fibreboard (Commonwealth English) is a type of engineered wood product that is made out of wood fibers. Types of fiberboard (in order of increasing density) include particle board or low-density fiberboard (LDF ...
, paper-overlaid
veneer Veneer may refer to: Materials * Masonry veneer, a thin facing layer of brick * Stone veneer, a thin facing layer of stone * Veneer (dentistry), a cosmetic treatment for teeth * Wood veneer, a thin facing layer of wood Arts and entertainment * ' ...
, plastic, and metal precipitated revolutionary changes in the container and packaging industry. The Nists had competition from large producers of the new materials, as well as continuing competition from non-unionized companies with pay scales still about half that of Seattle Box. Aging plants presented the second challenge of this period, with maintenance difficulties and less flexibility to handle new products and flow patterns. Operations were beset by
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...
, noise, and smoke, in spite of new procedures for baling shavings. Leadership at the plant was also in transition, with Gene Nist as vice president at the Tacoma plant and Emmet Nist vice president in Seattle. The firm continued developing alternative ways of using labor and raw materials. A modular panel container system was introduced in 1962, consisting of 50 plywood veneer panels that could be configured 350 different ways. "Klimp fasteners" replaced nails and cut costs by about a third, making re-use possible — and Tacoma Box had become the Northwest
distributor A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design ...
. Moving and storage containers and a car
kennel A kennel is a structure or shelter for dogs. Used in the plural, ''the kennels'', the term means any building, collection of buildings or a property in which dogs are housed, maintained, and (though not in all cases) bred. A kennel can be made o ...
kit were also introduced in the sixties. Other new products included a unique box made originally in Japan for ''sujiko ''(salmon
roe Roe, ( ) or hard roe, is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooking, c ...
); a container developed for the
Dole Food Company Dole plc (previously named Dole Food Company and Standard Fruit Company) is an Irish- American agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company is among the world's largest producers of fruit and vegetables ...
to transport pineapple juice concentrate; patented nailless bins for shipping cement and salt to
Alaska pipeline The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) is an oil transportation system spanning Alaska, including the trans-Alaska crude-oil pipeline, 12 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal. TAPS is one o ...
developers; and money blanks the size of a dollar bill for the U.S. Treasury Department. Earlier generations of the family business had allowed "Nist Bros." to be included in small print on company
letterhead A letterhead is the heading at the top of a sheet of letter paper (stationery). It consists of a name, address, logo or trademark, and sometimes a background pattern. Overview Many companies and individuals prefer to create a letterhead template ...
, with memos printed on letterhead as the primary means of advertising. But as times changed, Gene Nist developed the trademark "PerfectioNIST" for the family firm in 1968. Finally, as both plants had become outdated, the Nist family began to discuss building a new facility. A company brochure for new employees noted in 1969, "Survival is predicated on changing with the times," and listed the company's motto, "Be sure you're right...then hustle."


Merger with new facility, 1970 to present


New facility and packaging steel pipe in the 1970s

The decade of the seventies brought two major changes: the Seattle and Tacoma plants were merged in a new facility in Kent, between Seattle and Tacoma; and a new method for packaging steel
pipeline A pipeline is a system of Pipe (fluid conveyance), pipes for long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas, typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries ...
was developed and patented in that decade for shipping to the
Alaska North Slope The Alaska North Slope is the region of the U.S. state of Alaska located on the northern slope of the Brooks Range along the coast of two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Chukchi Sea being on the western side of Point Barrow, and the Beau ...
. The 1970s began with generally difficult circumstances locally: in 1971, a poor
salmon run A salmon run is an annual fish migration event where many salmonid species, which are typically hatched in fresh water and live most of their adult life downstream in the ocean, swim back against the stream to the upper reaches of rivers to s ...
affected demand for ''
sujiko Sujiko is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle created by Jai Gomer of Kobayaashi Studios. The puzzle takes place on a 3x3 grid with four circled number clues at the centre of each quadrant which indicate the sum of the four number ...
'' boxes; environmental concerns had repeatedly delayed opening the
oil fields A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presen ...
in Alaska, affecting orders for the larger containers with a capacity of ; and Puget Sound's economy was generally poor, due to layoffs in the airline industry at
Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
. F.J. Nist retired in 1972, and Emmet Nist became president of the company. The Nists also had to contend with two aging plants and concluded a new, modern facility was needed. Then in September 1973, a spectacular 3-alarm, 12-engine fire at the Seattle plant caused $150,000 in damages to the dry lumber storage facility. Company officers had already identified a site in
Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
of alongside the Milwaukie-Union Pacific rail line near the I-405 freeway. Construction on the $1.5 million plant began in 1974, and by spring 1975, the merger was underway, with 75 employees joining together in the renamed Seattle-Tacoma Box Company. Both the Seattle and Tacoma properties were sold to help finance the new property. The new facility provided workspace of under one roof, improving
workflow Workflow is a generic term for orchestrated and repeatable patterns of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a seque ...
; additionally, the property was large enough to provide a storage site for new clients in the oil pipe industry. Seattle-Tacoma Box Company had been providing nailless containers for shipping supplies to the
North Slope North Slope can refer to: * Alaska North Slope, a region encompassing the northernmost part of the U.S. state of Alaska * North Slope Borough, Alaska, a borough in Alaska whose boundaries roughly coincide with that of the region * North Slope, Taco ...
oil fields in Alaska, and that ongoing relationship led to the development of new tubular packaging systems patented in 1978 and 1980. The oil pipe packaging developed by Ferdinand Nist, Jr., brought international sales.


Investments in subsidiary plants, 1980s and 1990s

By 1980, the company bought a one-third interest in a
corrugated cardboard Corrugated fiberboard, corrugated cardboard, or corrugated is a type of packaging material consisting of a fluted corrugated sheet and one or two flat linerboards. It is made on "flute lamination machines" or "corrugators" and is used for maki ...
plant, the Menasha Corporation of Tacoma, and renamed the plant Commencement Bay Corrugated. In order to compete with corporate giants like
Weyerhauser The Weyerhaeuser Company ( ) is an American timberland company which owns nearly of timberlands in the U.S., and manages an additional of timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. The company has manufactured wood products for over a c ...
and
Georgia Pacific Georgia-Pacific LLC is an American pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the world's largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, toilet and paper towel dispensers, packaging, building products and r ...
, the company expanded its sales force several times. In 1985, the company's subsidiary SeaPro systems began manufacturing paper, corrugated, and wood products for
foodservice The foodservice (US English) or catering (British and Commonwealth English) industry includes the businesses, institutions, and companies which prepare meals outside the home. It includes restaurants, grocery stores, school and hospital cafet ...
industries. In 1989, Washington Governor
Booth Gardner William Booth Gardner (August 21, 1936 – March 15, 2013) was an American politician who served as the 19th governor of Washington from 1985 to 1993. He also served as the ambassador of the GATT. A member of the Democratic Party, Gardner previ ...
honored the Nists and their company with a
proclamation A proclamation (Lat. ''proclamare'', to make public by announcement) is an official declaration issued by a person of authority to make certain announcements known. Proclamations are currently used within the governing framework of some nations ...
declaring October 23, 1989, Nist Family Day, for their contributions to the state's economy.


Twenty-first century

Seattle-Tacoma Box Company is based in Kent, Washington, with operations in Alaska, California, Hawaii, and Oregon. It serves agricultural, industrial, and seafood markets with packaging supplies, boxes, wood containers, bags,
strapping Strapping, also known as bundling and banding, is the process of applying a strap to an item to combine, stabilize, hold, reinforce, or fasten it. A strap may also be referred to as ''strapping''. Strapping is most commonly used in the packagi ...
,
pallets A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. Many pallets can handle a load o ...
, fuel pellets, portable moving and storage vaults, as well as seafood containers. Its subsidiaries, SeaCa Packaging (founded in 1991) and SeaCa Plastic Packaging (founded in 2014), are in operation in central California, New Hampshire, and Arizona. SeaCa Plastic Packaging in Fowler, California, manufactures polypropylene corrugated cartons as a sustainable packaging replacement to wax corrugated. In 2019, the company built a new manufacturing location in Surprise, Arizona, with plans to create better packaging on a larger scale. Ferd Nist, Jr., president of the company, is a fourth-generation Nist, and fifth and sixth generation Nists (Michael, Robert, Jacob, Joseph, and Erika) already work in the family company.


References

{{reflist Packaging companies of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1889 Companies based in Kent, Washington Privately held companies based in Washington (state) 1889 establishments in Washington (state)