Perhaps you’ve driven by the mammoth Ganahl lumber yard on Del Amo Blvd. in Torrance between Maple Ave. and Crenshaw Blvd. It’s hard to miss.
But you might not know that Ganahl Lumber is owned and operated by the oldest lumber company in continuous operation in California.
Ganahl can trace its roots back to 1882, when the company, located at First and Alameda streets in downtown Los Angeles, was founded by former L.A. Mayor John Bryson.
He sold it in 1884 to St. Louis lumberman Christian Ganahl, who was looking to expand his operation to the very much still-under-construction Southern California. (The present-day firm considers 1884 to be the date of its founding.)
Ganahl sold a share of the firm to investor John J. Schallert. For the first decade of its operation, the company was known as the Schallert-Ganahl Lumber Co. When Schallert died in 1895, the company changed its name to C. Ganahl Lumber Co.
Lumber was a huge business in the area in the late 19th century, when the need for construction materials was constant. Several lumber yards operated in Wilmington and San Pedro, receiving their goods from cargo ships docking in Los Angeles Harbor, which wouldn’t officially become L.A.’s port until 1909.
Once in the port, the lumber had to be hauled 21 miles north to Los Angeles. This was done by wagons drawn by horses and oxen, until the area’s first railroad, The Los Angeles & San Pedro, began operating in 1869.
By 1888, Ganahl had three locations in L.A. In addition to First and Alameda, yards were opened at Grand Ave. and Washington St. and, in East Los Angeles, at Hoff and Water streets.
The company always believed in expansion. In 1904, it opened its branch in far-flung Anaheim in Orange County. By 1907, Ganahl had established ten locations in the greater L.A. area. Four were in the city itself, and had added South Bay locations in Redondo Beach and Inglewood. It also had a yard in Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 1928, Ganahl even opened a branch location in Lake Arrowhead, taking advantage of celebrities and others who spurred a mountain building boom there during the 1930s.
The Redondo Beach yard was located at Gertruda and Pacific avenues in an area that was reconfigured for the 1960s King Harbor redevelopment in the city. During its early days, steamships were still stopping at Redondo as it vied with San Pedro to become L.A.’s main port.
The Inglewood location on Eucalyptus St. north of Florence Ave. gained notoriety for its part in Buster Keaton’s 1920 silent short film “One Week.” The rail spur connecting Ganahl Lumber to the Santa Fe main line was used for one of Keaton’s most famous comic stunts, when the house he’s moving gets destroyed by a speeding train. The lumber yard’s sign is visible in the film.
The firm’s founder, Christian Ganahl, died from bronchial pneumonia at his home on Grand Ave. in L.A. on Feb. 8, 1922. He was 86. His descendants continued to run the business, and do so still.
Both the Inglewood and the Redondo Beach Ganahl locations eventually closed. Business in Redondo Beach began tapering off in the 1940s, when rail transport replaced shipping. The empty former yard burned to the ground in the 1970s, and the land became the site of Redondo Beach’s main post office.
Ganahl eventually moved its headquarters to Anaheim and much of its business focus to Orange County. It returned to Los Angeles County when it opened a Pasadena branch in 2012.
The firm’s president, Mark Ganahl, told the Daily Breeze in 2017 that 75 percent of the company’s sales were going to construction firms building upscale homes in the South Bay and on the Westside. A need for a centralized South Bay location had become a necessity.
After two years of searching for a suitable site, Ganahl in 2015 announced plans to build its new Torrance location at 2600 Del Amo Blvd. between Maple and Crenshaw avenues, a stretch of roadway built in 2012 to connect Del Amo to Crenshaw.
The new 18-acre lumberyard included an 86,000-square-foot building supply store, 40,500-square-foot lumber storage shed and 12,700-square-foot lumber milling shed on land that formerly was part of the Torrance Dow Chemical plant.
Ganahl also built a 775-foot-long rail spur connecting the yard to a nearby train line to facilitate its lumber deliveries and reduce the number of trucks needed to make them.
It opened for business on Aug. 4, 2017. Most of its customers are builders and contractors, though the company also serves retail consumers.
Ganahl now operates eleven lumber yards throughout Southern California after adding its first San Fernando Valley location with its 2022 acquisition of Northridge Lumber.
In addition to Torrance, Ganahl’s other locations are in Anaheim, Buena Park, Capistrano Beach, Corona, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, Lake Forest, Los Alamitos and Pasadena.
Sources:
“About Us: History,” Ganahl Lumber Co. website.
Daily Breeze archives.
Directory of the City of Redondo Beach, 1907 edition.
Los Angeles Times archives.
“Pioneer Lumber Dealers in Los Angeles,” by W.F. Montgomery, Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly, March 1942, University of California Press.
Redondo Reflex archives.
San Pedro News Pilot archives.
