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History Photos

Browse the photo gallery below by clicking the thumbnails for a larger view and explanation.

 

Old Hardwoods Room (now the Vanity Showroom and Hardware area). Manager, Marvin Nelson talking to a customer. Note the Koa Tiki and “Sylvester” in the background. (Sylvester was a caricature-mascot of SLC, who’s creation is still a mystery that passed away with Ed Pohle in the mid-70’s)
The “Old Southern Lumber” Hardwoods Room in the mid-60’s. Ed Pohle is pictured to the right, talking with long-time employee (50+ years), Pete Souza.
SLC, Monterey Road. Glass front windows allowed the display of Dillabaugh wooden boat kits and El Toro sailboats to people driving by. These windows were later removed for a prefinished 4x8 paneling department and now serve as the back wall of our Vanity Showroom.
Bruce Pohle and employee, Dennis Bogue. Dennis hand-carved the 75th Anniversary block from Honduras Mahogany in 1979.
Post-fire hardware shelves, displays and customer service area around the late 70’s. (note the bell-bottoms on the customer to the left!)
A Southern Lumber Employee shows a customer a sample frame in the Picture Frame Department.
Southern Lumber after being remodeled in the late 40’s. We believe the cute kid standing in front of the store is actually Bruce Pohle.
The great State of California took the front portion of Southern Lumber’s property in order to widen Monterey Rd. Up until the mid-50’s, Southern Lumber’s location at Alma Street was just south of the San Jose city limits.
Looking north, up 1st Street, you can see a lone palm that marks the eastern edge of the Zanker House property, where Alma Street would later be built.
A view of Southern Lumber Company from the western side of Monterey Road. Prior to the 1960’s, Monterey Road was the only southern main road to exit the Santa Clara Valley.
Up until the mid-50’s, Southern Lumber’s location at Alma Street was just south of the San Jose city limits. This photo shows the newly built Alma St. now connected through to 7th Street.
After the fire around the late 70’s, but before new redwood-beam trellis and oak trees. Check out all of the station-wagons in the parking lot!
Southern Lumber’s “Mill Office” in the early 1920’s.
Southern Lumber’s Monterey Road storefront around the 1930’s when Ed Pohle first began working as an employee, and then a few years later, he purchased Southern Lumber, effectively saving the company from The Great Depression.
1923, early life on Monterey Road, prior to Alma Street being built. Pete Souza can be seen in the back row, 5th from the left. Pete can also be seen in a previously shown photo (above, second in the photo gallery) taken in the old Hardwoods Room at Southern Lumber.
Bruce Pohle learned to drive a stick shift with this Red Dodge. The shed in the background was the old “Alma Shed”, which fronted Alma Street when it was put through. He later tore down the shed to make room for an extended parking lot when the post-fire parking lot was not big enough.
June, 1973. In what many veteran firefighters would later call, “one of the largest commercial fires in San Jose history”, Southern Lumber burned to the ground in a devastating fire that could be seen from as far away as the Almaden Valley.
The famous SLC Fire. Including the Sun Garden packing plant shed filled with tomatoes & prunes!
This is the old hardwood room which sustained very little damage inside due to the fire doors.
 
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