Our History – 1919 – 2019
Where MT Scott Fuel Started
Mt. Scott Fuel has now reached an amazing milestone of being in business for 100 years. Yes, landscaping products supplier for over 100 years! It was started in the Lent’s district in 1919 by Edward Tyler and an uncle named Barker. The business was then known as Hazelwild Fuel Co. They worked together for a while but soon split up. Later, the business was soon moved to the present Foster Rd. location and as the area was called Mt. Scott, the name was changed to Mt. Scott Fuel Co.
Soon after this Edward’s son Orvil joined the business and worked until his death. At that time Oscar Tyler, Edward’s other son joined his father in business. In the early days, the business was only a firewood business.
The partners and their employees logged most of the top of Mt Scott with horses and wagons. Also, they kept the horses in a large old circus tent on top of the mountain. They cut the old growth fir trees into 4-foot lengths and then split them into cordwood. Then with a wagon and sled pulled by the horses, they hauled the wood to the edge of the hill. The wood was then thrown into a dry wood flume that they had built and sent to an area near Foster Rd. They either hauled it to the wood yard or to our customers where they piled it on the curb to dry all summer.
In the fall cutters with truck-mounted saws would come around in the neighborhoods, for a fee they would cut the wood into the proper lengths for the people so they could put it away for the winter.
1950’s
Later on, the business expanded into other fuels, coal Gasco briquets {Manufactured in Portland by the gas co.}Prestologs {made then by Wearhauser in Longview WA.} and oil.
As times changed and the large logs became less available, more were going to the sawmills. We depended on the mills as a source of firewood. We hauled 4-foot slab wood from the mills to our wood yard on Foster. We stacked it in long 8 foot high rows to dry, then cut it to order and delivered it to our customers. Again as times changed in the late ’50s and early 60’s the sawmills found it more profitable to chip the slab wood and sell the chips to make paper. Before they could do this they had to remove the bark. This bark was useless and was burned in huge wigwam burners at the old mills in that era, that was how the mills would get rid of their waste products until somebody thought to grind it for ground cover, thus the beginning of bark dust.
As we were already dealing with the mills it made sense for us to add that to our business. As we started selling bark dust the need for these wigwam burners disappeared, so as an added benefit to the community these burners were torn down, and with that their air pollution went away. At one time in Oregon, there were hundreds of these burners. The reclamation of the bark for the ground cover turned out to be a big help to the environment.
1960’s
In the early 60’s Oscar’s sons, Terry and Galen officially went to work for the company Terry and Galen had always worked at the family business, after school, and on Saturdays anyway.
1980’s
Terry’s sons Clay and Paul came to work for the company in the early ’80s.
1990’s
Oscar retired in the ’90s and sadly passed away in 2000. Galen was bought out in 1999.
MT Scott Fuel Today
Today the business (MT Scott Fuel) is run by Terry and his sons, Clay and Paul Tyler. Oscar’s legacy lives on today in the way he ran the business and the closeness of a family atmosphere as well as his constant ambition to help his community and customers. If you have any landscape questions, please contact us. Whether it’s about our premium firewood, or what type of bark or mulch is needed for your landscape project. Call us at Portland: 503-774-3241 or Boring: 503-663-1414.
