Miller Wood Trade Publications Inc., located in Memphis, Tenn., has been producing publications focused on the wood products and lumber industries since 1927.

Otto Miller began the company after producing the initial publication, entitled “The Memphis Lumberman and Southern Woodworkers,” which was eventually re-named National Hardwood Magazine.

Miller began his career in the print media with the “St. Louis Lumberman,” a magazine that focused on Yellow Pine. He traveled the South selling advertising and developing feature articles about the lumber industry. During this time, he discovered a large number of Hardwood mills that were not interested in the Softwood industry or a magazine pertaining to it, but did offer support for a Hardwood publication.

In response to that support, in 1927, Miller re-located his growing family to Memphis, Tenn., which, at the time was the Hardwood capitol of the world. There, a well-known lumberman, E.N. Beard Sr., lived two doors down from the Millers. The Hardwood mills from the Midwest and North were moving South to cut the vast tract of virgin Hardwood timber and most roads were non-existent, yet the lumber industry boomed.

Miller’s son, Paul, joined National Hardwood Magazine permanently upon his return from active service duty in the military in the mid-1940s. He initiated a second publication, a monthly woodworking and machinery publication, entitled “The Classified Exchange.”

Through the years, these two publications were followed by eight more wood trade publications, one of which today focuses on Softwoods and another that is dedicated to the import/export lumber industry. Four of Paul’s five sons joined the publishing firm, and helped establish these thriving trade editions.

Today, the long-standing tradition of reporting on all pertinent lumber industry news and features continues at Miller Wood Trade Publications Inc.