L.T. "Tom" Murray Jr.'s Obituary
L. T. Murray, Jr.
In the wee hours of July 5th, our father, Lowell Thomas Murray, Jr., passed away in his sleep, after a day of ensuring his beloved fireworks show had his appropriate direction!
Tom was born January 2, 1926 to Lowell Thomas Murray and Helen Bailey Murray. After seven years of public school in Tacoma, he spent two years at the Lakeside School in Seattle and three years at Taft School in Watertown CT, graduating in June of 1943. After a short visit home he entered Yale University. He was accepted in the Navy V-12 Engineering Officer Training Program in March of 1944 and graduated in February of 1946 with a Bachelor of Science from the Yale School of Engineering majoring in Industrial Administration and Engineering, and was commissioned as Ensign in the USNR. After completing a three month training cruise along with about 2,000 other green ensigns, he was discharged at the Philadelphia Navy Yard the end of June 1946. He returned home and immediately forgave being an officer and a gentleman and went to work for the St. Regis Paper Company’s logging operations at Mineral WA as an archcat chokerman and gandy dancer.
After spending the winter at West Fork Timber’s (his father’s company) High Valley cattle ranch in Ellensburg as a cowboy and farmhand. When the woods opened up that spring he got a job setting chokers on a Ladd Logging company high lead side. Later that Summer he tallied for a log scaler, and used his GI bill to acquire a Private Pilot’s license to fly seaplanes. Later after a stint in Buffelin Manufacturing Company’s door factory he finally got the job he wanted, setting dogs on the log carriage of their sawmills, so he would learn what signs of defect at the end of a log did to the log’s interior. When fall arrived he entered the University of Washington Forestry School and after completing his thesis that summer was awarded a Master’s Degree in Forestry. In September of 1948 he became Forester for West Fork Timber’s tree farm which was under permanent contract
to the St. Regis Paper Company. The contract initially required tree selection logging rather than the conventional clearcutting that was practiced by most all other timber companies. Tom’s principal job was to mark each individual tree that he wanted the St. Regis cutting crew to fall.
1951 was a banner year for Tom. While he was vacationing with his parents near Palm Desert, he met the love of his life, Cathy Marshall, who having recently graduated from Pomona, was a school teacher and hostess at the Smoke Tree Ranch, a prominent guest ranch in Palm Springs. Tom wasted no time getting her to agree to become a permanent part of his life. Heeding his father’s advice that he would never amount to anything if he did not work for himself, he started the Silver Creek Logging Company with two partners that owned a well-used Allis-Chalmers tractor, two pickups, and a couple of power saws, to salvage trees on some of West Fork’s previously selectively logged land. Tom married Cathy in December of 1951. By 1956 they were joined by Lowell Thomas Murray III (Toby), Elizabeth Lee Murray (Liz), and James Marshall Murray (Jamie).
Wishing not to send his children away to boarding school, he joined Sam Brown as one of the several founders of the Charles Wright Academy and was a trustee for many years. All three children graduated from there which gave him the opportunity to enjoy growing up with them for as much of the time his logging operations (which had become greatly expanded) allowed. Silver Creek Logging had become part of West Fork timber and a full-fledged logging company which he later took over back on his own and expanded even more so. His one claim to fame was that he pioneered the first successful radio-controlled skyline carriage, the Skagit Torpedo, creating a logging system still today used to long the longer, steeper slopes on the west coast.
His logging career ended abruptly when his father had a severe heart attack in 1969, and he took
over the reins of West Fork Timber later enlarging it to Murray Pacific as he expanded the company into log exporting and other endeavors. The highlight of his career was the recovering of complete control of Murray Pacific’s timber holdings in an arbitration procedure against St. Regis Paper Company.
Tom was a past president of the Tacoma Lumberman’s Club, the youngest president of the then prestigious Pacific Logging Congress, a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, both at Yale and the University of Washington, a trustee of Charles Wright Academy, the University of Portland, a director of Tacoma General Hospital and Tacoma Art Museum, a director of the Bank of Tacoma and then the First Interstate Bank of Washington, and the Murray Family Foundation. He was one of the original founders and director of the Western Forest Industries Museum, the Camp Six project at Pt. Defiance Park. Later he started the Mr. Rainier Scenic Railroad which has one of the world’s largest collection of operable steam locomotives. With the closure of Camp Six, the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and Museum is well on its way to becoming one of this country’s top tourist
railroads and logging museums.
Tom was a lifetime member of the Tacoma Country and Golf Club, a past member of the Lakewood Racquet Club, the Washington Athletic Club, the Bohemia Club, the Cascade Club, and member and past president of the Tribe of SOYP.
Nothing gave Tom greater joy than being with people, whether they were old friends from Tacoma or new friends acquired through travel or business. He genuinely loved people, and people in turn loved him back. Tom and Cathy were great hosts and will be long remembered for their Rose Bowl parties. They enjoyed inviting their many friends to West Fork varied facilities such as the Lodge in Mineral, the High Valley Ranch in Ellensburg and at the Palauea Beach complex in Maui. There were also many good times in Palm Springs, first in rental homes and eventually at the house they purchased at Smoke Tree Ranch. And for over forty years he took company associates, suppliers, friends and relatives on fishing trips to the British Columbia, where Tom was well-known as a great raconteur with his repertoire of risqué stories, complete with appropriate accents.
Twenty years of working in the woods resulted in arthritis that eventually ended his participation in golf and then tennis, but he remained an avid bridge player and skilled salmon fisherman. Besides his involvement with preserving steam locomotives and other logging equipment, Tom was the producer of one of Tacoma’s more spectacular fireworks shows. Aided by his sons and close young friends Gerry Child and Lyle Peniston, for over fifty years he supplied the residents of first American then Gravelly Lake with a 4th of July evening of pyrotechnical magic.
Above all else, Tom’s greatest love was family, including his Murray family as well as his Marshall family in-laws. Tom was preceeded in death by his wife, Cathy, and is survived by his children, Toby(Laurie), Liz (Steve Kurtz) and Jamie (Sandra), as well as his grandchildren L.T. Murray IV, Kelsey Hayford, Kate and Kyra Mirante, and Bailey and Julia Murray.
A Celebration of Life service and reception will be held on Tuesday, August 8 at 6:00 p.m. at Tacoma Country & Golf Club.
Please share your memories of Tom and condolences to the family, by visiting the tribute wall.
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