In 1883 John William Embree moved from Topeka, KS to Chicago, IL and formed a partnership in the lumber business with Moses Rittenhouse who was also of Quaker descent.  John William Embree's career in the lumber merchant was colorful and interesting, and he was respected as a good and an honorable citizen.  The following account of Rittenhouse & Embree Company is abstracted from "We Rate Diamonds 1883 - 1958" furnished through the kindness of Suzanne Embree Sinclair (grand daughter).

One Sunday morning in 1883 Moses F. Rittenhouse and his small son Charles took a boat from the old lumber district of 22nd Street and rowed down the Chicago River, seeking a site for a lumber yard suitable for the newly-organized partnership of Rittenhouse & Embree.  The original location of the firm was 3911 South Halsted Street but a dock site was essential to continue and expand the business.  The site selected was just east of the south branch of the Chicago River at 35th Street.

Timber in those days was abundant in the forests adjacent to the Great Lakes.  These White Pine forests supplied lumber to be cut by sawmills and shipped in cargo streamers from ports on the east side of Lake Michigan, and from Wisconsin ports on the west side of the lake.  Chicago was a great market for lumber these schooners, sometimes loaded with more than 1,000,000 feet of rough lumber of all sizes and grades, would enter the Chicago River and settle around the Franklin Street area to be sold by commission houses to the retail and wholesale lumber yards.  Up to 100 schooners of this type would often be at this point in the early morning until the lumber was sold.  A buyer representing a yard - in this case either Mr. Rittenhouse or Mr. Embree - would note origin of the shipment, examine the product of the log which was on the deck of the boat, and if his firm wanted the type of lumber carried, he would buy the entire shipment.  Then a tug would tow each cargo to the yard in question for unloading.

On the arrival of this schooner at the Rittenhouse & Embree dock it would be unloaded by the hands of skilled stevedores.  Since the entire cut of the log was usually included in such shipments, sorting was necessary to separate thicknesses and grades, extending from the top grade of Clears for finishing lumber to the common grades for sheathing, siding and heavier house-framing lumber and timbers. 

The lumber would be formed into square piles, very often thirty-two feet high, with suitable space between layers to allow the movement of air for drying.  When thoroughly seasoned, it would be ready for dressing to pattern of shipping in the rough to the local market or by railroad to all sections of the Middle West.  As much as 30,000,000 board feet of all kinds of lumber were stored at one time in the three yards at 35th Street and the River.  In order to strengthen the assurance of regular shipments of lumber from the sawmills adjacent to the Great Lakes the Company owned a steamer called the Oregon - and tow called the Foster.  After years of service, these two schooners encountered a severe storm on one of the lakes, and the Captain elected to cut the tow loose and beach the Oregon.  This catastrophe was shortly followed by the beaching of the Foster.

When the Rittenhouse & Embree partnership was established in 1883 it was still the day of wooden sidewalks, plank roads, and houses placed on foundations of cedar posts.  Deliveries were made by horses and wagons so that a large barn was necessary with appropriate help for feeding and caring for these hard-working animals.  Skilled hands loaded these skeleton trucks and willing horses sped at a walk for miles to the construction job sites, often taking all day to make one delivery.  To further the care of this delivery equipment it was necessary to maintain a Wagon Shop for repair work and a Blacksmith Shop to shoe the fifty or more horses.

In 188 Rittenhouse & Embree erected a planing mill (A planing mill is a facility that takes cut and seasoned boards from a sawmill and turns them into finished dimensional lumber) with four machines increased later to twelve, in addition to a dry kiln already there. Hardwood was added in 1890 with sales of eight to ten million feet annually (Pine sales at that time were twenty-five million feet a year).  Equipped with the dry kiln, and with hardwood flooring machines and matchers, rough maple and oak from Wisconsin and Michigan were also unloaded stored in the same manner as the White Pine and Norway pine.  

On 2 March 1891 at the annual meeting of the Lumber Men’s Association, Rittenhouse & Embree was admitted to membership.  During this period Mr. Rittenhouse managed the yard and arranged for the purchase of cargo shipments.  Mr. Embree managed the Sales and handled the collection of accounts throughout the territory.   In 1893 the partnership was changed to a corporation – Rittenhouse & Embree Company.  

At the turn of the century, the Company ventured into the logging and manufacturing of lumber.  In Northern Wisconsin, the Company entered into a logging and sawing enterprise with the Thompson Lumber Company at Washburn that manufactured white pine.

Near Richton, MS a tract of timber was purchased and the Richton Lumber Company produced timbers, car sills and other products from the long-leaf yellow pine which grew in the vicinity.  Throughout the early part of the century their lumber operation at Norwood, Michigan with the mill, store, camp and employees’ houses produced lumber for the Chicago operation.  During the 1920s, they were interested in the Edisto River Lumber Company located at Embree, SC, where scattered timber holdings of yellow pine were cut and manufactured.  

The neighboring farmers could not be persuaded to allow passage of log trains across their farm land.  The timber was scattered throughout the area and the resulting snake-like roadbed for the railroad trains raised transportation costs excessively, so the Company soon sold its interest.  
On April 7, 1905 the lumber industry in Chicago became the victim of a secondary boycott and strike by the Teamsters Union.  J. William Embree as President of the Lumbermen’s Association of Chicago was principal figure on the management side in the 106 day strike which ended with an unconditional surrender by the Teamsters.  

The Company’s operation called the Arkansas Lumber Company was located in Warren about ninety miles southeast of Little Rock, where the Company had purchased a large stand of short leaf yellow pine.  At one time the timber was located about forty miles southeast of town, from which point their own railroad brought logs into the mill daily.  The Missouri Pacific was the sole railroad servicing Warren.  The Company logging railroad crossed the Rock Island Railroad in the other direction about sixteen miles from Warren at a junction called Tinsman.  The Southern Lumber Company which was also in this area, and the Company established a passenger and freight service to the junction with the Rock Island and it was called the Warren and Ouachita Valley Railroad.  According to the franchise a passenger train made two trips daily to the junction with the Rock Island.  This consisted of a locomotive, baggage car and one coach.

There was a freight and passenger station at Warren and a Y for turning the train at Tinsman.  The operation at Warren included the sawmill, pond, roundhouse for locomotives, office building, the company store and houses for employees.  

At the end of a very hot and dry July in 1916 a disastrous fire destroyed the mill, dry kilns, flooring sheds containing oak and maple flooring, a wagon shop and much lumber in the rough at the old east yard at 35th and Racine in Chicago.  The excessively dry condition created an almost instant conflagration, so that their harness maker, was unable to reach the street before he was engulfed in the flames.  The only building saved was the engine room which provided power to run the mill.  This made the decision final to cease the manufacture of oak and maple flooring.  

The Chicago property at Belmont and Kimball Avenues, comprising eight acres with lumber sheds, wide concrete alleys a kiln and a compete mill for the manufacture of sash, frames and interior trim was set up as a modern lumber yard in 1916.  

The years following World War I were years of rapid change for the Company. The horse drawn delivery equipment was replaced with motor trucks and the Company followed the trend in the industry away from logging, sawmill and transportation aspects toward more of a manufacturer and supplier of finished lumber products to the construction trades.