09/10/2026
The countdown to 100 years in business! Setzer Forest Products is celebrating its history and evolution over the next 12 months by sharing the story of our founder, Curt Setzer, his wife Hazel, and how the business adapted through the ups and downs, leading us into the 4th generation.
The life of Curt and his beginnings are taken from the autobiography, โPlane โem Thick Rip โem Wide,โ which he wrote upon his retirement after 50 years in the shook business.
So, letโs start the 10-decade countdown with the life of Curt Frederick Setzer:
๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐น๐ ๐น๐ถ๐ณ๐ฒ ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฑ ๐ฎ ๐บ๐ผ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐๐บ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ถ๐ฐ๐ฎ
Curt was the youngest of 13 children. Born in Leipzig, East Germany, on March 29th, 1883. His father, Otto, owned a successful brewery until the year Curt was born. His father sold his part of the brewery to his brother and moved part of the family to America when Curt was only six months old, settling in St. Paul, Minnesota, where another brewery was built, and success was to be had. With that success, another brewery was built in Bismarck, North Dakota. The future looked bright โ as long as people drank beer โ which there didnโt seem to be any indication that the habit was going to stop any time soon. Unfortunately, fires wiped out both breweries in a short time. The family roles changed in the course of several hours. From living life well-to-do to the ranks of the very poor. Curtโs mother took over the responsibility of clothing and feeding the family. โFather seemed to have lost his sense of direction and purpose. He began grasping at straws and chasing rainbows.โ
๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ ๐ผ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฎ๐น๐ถ๐ณ๐ผ๐ฟ๐ป๐ถ๐ฎ
In 1888, Otto Setzer moved the family to Red Bluff, California. An old German miner spoke of a lost gold mine, and gold fever was brewing. The dreams of riches in finding the lost mine never panned out. In 1893, the family moved again to Klamathon, Siskiyou County, California, where the Pioneer Box Company was starting up. Otto and his son, Paul, who was only 12, worked at the mill, and Johnny, another son, started when he turned 12. Curt had the chore of bringing them lunches in the summer, since he was still too young to work. Curt enjoyed being a kid in Klamathon. He enjoyed swimming with his friends in the Sacramento River and entertaining passenger trains by log rolling. They played baseball and hunted rattlers and skunks.
๐๐ฒ๐น๐ฝ๐ถ๐ป๐ด ๐ ๐ผ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ
Times were getting tougher. Curtโs fatherโs prospecting ventures became more frequent in the summer of 1894, and finances grew tighter and tighter. With his father gone so much, Curt knew his mother couldnโt keep making ends meet. His brothers' paychecks and the boarders' rent were not enough. Curt made a decision. He told his mother, after school let out, that he was going to work at the box factory for the summer, just to help out. He was 11.
