The business papers of George Frederick Jewett, Manager and Vice-President of the Edward Rutledge Timber Company from 1928, Vice-President of Potlatch Forests, Incorporated, from 1935 to 1946 and President of the same company from 1946 until 1949, consist primarily of the correspondence directly concerned with these companies. The Rutledge Company was one of the three companies (the others being the Clearwater Timber Company and the Potlatch Lumber Company) to be merged in 1931 to Potlatch Forests, Inc.; the original idea of consolidation having been formulated by Mr. Jewett as early as 1927 in order to help the three companies overcome the economic depression which so seriously threatened the lumber industry of the west, by a merger which would enable the companies to combine their resources and to evolve a more economic division of labor. Following this merger Mr. Jewett remained as manager of the Rutledge Unit of P.F.I. and throughout that decade was active-in establishing P.F.I. as an efficient and prosperous business concern and as a company which established a reputation of being forward looking and a pioneer company in the propagation of new methods in both forestry and in the industry itself. This progress can be traced in the business correspondence between 1928 and 1950.

In addition to the correspondence concerned solely with P.F.I. there is a considerable volume of correspondence within these files between G.F. Jewett and the many conservation associations in which he played an active role. As President of the North Idaho Conservation Association, member of the Western Forestry and Conservation Association and member of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, and leader of that Association's committee on forest conservation, it is clear to see that at all times Mr. Jewett was a strong advocate of the adoption of new and efficient methods of conservation and forest management in general. As an active supporter of private forestry, perhaps the issue on which Mr. Jewett felt most strongly of all, his correspondence with United States Chamber of Commerce, Department of Agriculture and with Congressmen and Senators is most illuminating. Further letters to the Idaho State Chamber of Commerce, dealing for the most part with controversial forest taxation, with the Inland Empire Industrial Research, Inc., and with the Forest Industries Committee, all endorse the intense interest displayed by Mr. Jewett in forestry not only from a purely business point of view but as a far sighted advocate of new methods and further scientific developments in this field. His contribution to the American lumber industry is immense, both as an astute business man and as an advocate of efficient and modern innovations in forestry practice.