FACES OF THE CENTURY--PEOPLE WHO MADE NEWS IN THE 1900S--HUBERT SCHAFER: ONE OF THE FAMOUS BROTHERS
	There have been thousands of news stories that have appeared in The Vidette over the past 100 Years. So, as we celebrate the year 2001, we have decided to run an occasional feature on influential people of Montesano and Grays Harbor County who made a name for themselves during the past 100 years.
	This week's feature is on former Grays Harbor timber baron Hubert Schafer.
	Hubert Schafer was born on June 19, 1873, the second of three brothers, to John and Anna Schafer in the Satsop Valley.
	Hubert's father, John, had been an instructor in a German college, but left that country with his wife in 1847 for the United States. The couple settled in Wisconsin where Mrs. Schafer died in 1852. The next year. John Schafer went to California during the gold rush and later mined in Oregon. John Schafer then traveled to South America and then returned to Wisconsin, where he married Anna BuIlenbeck Muller, the mother of Peter, Hubert and Albert. In 1871, he arrived in San Francisco and soon afterwards he came to the Northwest, settling in the Satsop Valley.
	The Schafer family lived the life of pioneer ranchers and it was not until 1893 that the three sons, Hubert, Albert and Peter, began the logging business which was to become their paramount interest. From the beginning the three were sole owners, and the association was unbroken until Hubert's death.
	In 1893, Hubert and his brothers logged timber on their own ranch with ox teams and floated great logs down the Satsop River. Their parents insisted upon keeping up the ranch on which they depended for their living and in those days it was a record of long and difficult labor.
	During the Alaska gold rush, Hubert went north, returning in 1899 to Seattle where he was employed by the Washington Iron Works. Part of his wages went to pay for the first donkey engine for their logging operations and the oxen were finally replaced. In 1913, the brothers rented a small locomotive to haul logs and in 1915, they bought their first locomotive.
	Steadily, the Schafer brothers increased their holdings of timber and in 1921 they entered the mill business in Montesano. Their manufacturing activities grew, too, until they owned two lumber mills and one shingle mill in Montesano, a lumber mill in Aberdeen and another in Dryad.
	Mr. Schafer was secretary-treasurer of the Schafer Brothers Logging Company and allied companies. The logging end of the business absorbed his attention, being in charge of all scaling and selling of logs. In 38 years since beginning their logging business, the Schafer brothers had amassed five lumber and shingle mills, and huge timber holdings tapped by many miles of railroad. Instead of the rapid waters of the Satsop and Chehalis taking their product to market, their own lumber steamships ply the Pacific.
	In 1922, the brothers presented the state with Schafer park, about 30 acres on the banks of the Satsop River north of their homestead, in memory of their parents.
	Hubert had bought the old Schafer homestead and spent most of his time restoring it as it was in his boyhood days. His love for the old home that his parents had wrestled from the wilderness, assisted later by himself and his brothers, had caused him in later years to buy the tract again and all available time he had lie devoted to developing the ranch as his father had developed it before him.
	He married Bertha J. Thornton on May 18, 1908. Mrs. Schafer died on December 19, 1929.
	Hubert had been ill for several months. Peter and Albert had taken him to Rochester, Minn., to consult the Mayo brothers, but it was found that an operation would not help him. However, no one outside of the immediate family knew of his serious health condition. Hubert Schafer died in Aberdeen on Sept. 6. 1931 at the age of 58.
	With the brilliant sun of early autumn striking scarlet and gold from the maple-clad hills surrounding the Schafer homestead, Hubert Schafer joined his parents and his wife on Tuesday, Sept. 8 at the family cemetery on the old ranch in the Satsop Valley. Several hundred relatives and friends stood at the flower strewn graveside while final rites were being performed for the pioneer lumberman.
	At the time of his death, Hubert Schafer was survived by five children, Bertha, Elizabeth. Hubert, Jr., Gerald and Francis, all of Aberdeen; brothers, Peter and Albert of Montesano; and a sister, Mrs. Margaret Reinig of Snoqualmie. Nephews and nieces included: John D., Carl A., Edward P., Marie and Gertrude Schafer and Mrs. Timothy Gleeson.
	Pall bearers were Frank Byles, Fred Chittick, Clyde Pitchford, W. C. Lindsell, Bert Callow, Charles Holmer, William Morrow and A.J. Morley.
	Nearly 80 cars formed the procession to the Schafer cemetery where the body was consigned to the earth amid a profusion of flowers. Business was closed in Montesano during the services and the Schafer operations were suspended from Saturday until Wednesday morning.--The Vidette, February 8, 2001