Alongside the first housing, Long-Bell also constructed a school building. Unlike the businesses, the school's operation was a public endeavor governed by the state and managed by an elected board of six local men. An unknowing observer may be a bit surprised at hearing traces of a Southern drawl when listening to some of the people who attended school in Ryderwood.

Luther Fleming, universally acknowledged the caretaker of Ryderwood's history, moved to Ryderwood from Mississippi when he was seven years old. There his father had worked as a scaler for Long-Bell, but in 1929 work ran out and the company offered Mr. Fleming a job in booming Ryderwood. The company didn't offer jobs in Washington to all their men in the South, Luther says. Only good workers who weren't viewed as potential union organizers received these invitations from Long-Bell, and they had to get out West on their own. All in all, about five hundred of Long-Bell's Southern family headed to the Great Northwest before the onset of the Great Depression.

"A big Douglas Fir log ready for loading in the Long-Bell timber near Ryderwood, Wn."

The Log of Long-Bell, v. 10. no. 5, May 1928

Ryderwood, like the rest of the nation, suffered during the Depression, but R. A. Long's Christian priorities of family and brotherhood kept all men working through that tough time. People who were children in the Depression relate how their fathers were never laid off; they say this policy applied to the single men too.

Long-Bell set up crews and rotated them so that each man was assured employment, albeit part-time. As generous as it was, Long-Bell's paternalistic authority took a blow when the adolescent Ryderwood joined other woodworkers in the regional strike of 1935. Company accounts mention a Woodmen of the World affiliation in Ryderwood as early as 1928, although Long-Bell tended to avoid strong union men as Luther recalls. But the walkout in May of '35 showed that the loggers weren't afraid to bite the hand that fed (and housed) them, and the union remained active in Ryderwood until Long-Bell's pull-out, with worker safety consistently being one of its main concerns.

The Company Store ("The Merc")