2 weeks Ago By Rebecca Mitchell
PRESTON, Minn. — Southeast Minnesota’s lumber and woodworking industry is a scene of continual change. There have been changes in the number of sawmills in the area, changes in the number and type of workers, and changes in the types of wood people want to see in their homes.
ADVERTISEMENT President Andy Nigon of Nigon Woodworks in Rochester said that about every five years there’s a shift in the wood types people request for projects. For example, cherry was popular in the early 2000s. He watches the wood prices change with the demand, too.
There's another change — and a lot of unknowns — to deal with: tariffs. Lately, Nigon has been continually checking with suppliers about how tariffs imposed by the Trump administration might impact lumber prices for projects in Southeast Minnesota. Nigon’s sheet goods, while made through a company based in northern Minnesota, come from Canada.
His business works on residential remodels with wood products in kitchens and bathrooms as well as commercial projects with Formica-style plastic laminate. Wood prices appear likely to increase with a 25% tariff on imported products from Canada. A 14.
5% duty rate was already in place on Canadian lumber, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The tariffs started in March with reciprocal tariffs on products from around the world on April 2. Lumber is currently exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, though additional tariffs are expected, CNBC reported.
The U.S. imports softwood lumber from Canada, China, Brazil, Mexico and Germany.
In 2022, wood imports from Canada totaled more than $28 million, according to the World Integrated Trade Solution. The price of softwood lumber between Canada and the U.S.
varied considerably over the years. ADVERTISEMENT U.S.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar introduced a bill on April 1, with fellow senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, to reverse the Canadian tariffs. The Senate passed the resolution on Wednesday.
“You look at the fact that the Chamber of Commerce has been out opposing the tariffs as a whole ...
that the steelworkers have been out there, that the homebuilders have been out there because of the cost of lumber. This is across the board, across the country, a national sales tax on Americans,” Klobuchar said in a press conference announcing the legislation. While tariffs will drive up prices for imported lumber, there’s still a lot of uncertainty about just how large that impact will be for local businesses, especially as they start to price out future projects.
Nigon said his business might buy the wood for a residential project weeks in advance, which means there’s more confidence about the cost of the lumber. But commercial projects are priced longer in advance. “Commercial projects are quite a bit bigger than residential, and sometimes those will extend six months, eight months, or even a year.
And so that would impact us where we price something today. (We) wouldn’t buy the material until fall of next year and the prices could be quite a bit different. That would be a challenge,” Nigon said in March.
He added that his location doesn’t have extra space to buy in bulk. Root River Hardwoods in Preston has adapted through generations since the 1970s. The Preston logging and sawmill business, co-owned by Mike Merritt, Jeff Wand, Andy Bahl and Brett Merritt, added a new pair of investors in January 2025, and they’re grinding toward more growth, like increased sawmill production, tree harvesting and millwork.
They work with hardwoods grown in the Driftless area, like walnut, oak and elm. Those hardwoods largely become home-related projects — like cabinets, flooring, tables and doors — throughout Southeast Minnesota. ADVERTISEMENT Whether demand or tariffs, Wand said, “we have go at the flow of the markets.
” During the “wait and see” period of the tariffs occurring, Bahl said the tariffs would likely increase what are otherwise relatively stable prices. The tariffs create a higher cost for wood like yellow poplar, which isn’t grown in Minnesota. Merritt said the uncertainty of how tariffs will impact everyone means business “might be rocky for a year.
” Trump signed two executive orders on March 1, including “Freeing Our Forests” with the goals of decreasing reliance on imported timber and increasing domestic timber production, increasing forest management, and decreasing wildfire risks. “President Trump is committed to creating jobs, lowering construction costs, and making the United States more self-reliant by tapping into its abundant timber resources,” according to a White House fact sheet on the executive order. Although some area businesses believe the tariffs will affect them in some way, others believe the impact may be minimal.
Austin Fohrman, owner of Versatile Woodworks in St. Charles, said the focus on locally-sourced wood and products is a benefit of the tariffs. His business, which opened in 2019, is multifaceted with a tree service, custom woodshop and a retail store for woodworking hobbyists.
He hopes more people will purchase locally because of the tariffs. ADVERTISEMENT The tree service focuses on salvaged wood within about 20 miles of St. Charles.
Those trees are milled, air-dried and kiln-dried and made into tables, countertops, mantles, and shelving. “We’re very well insulated from that (the tariffs) just because it's all sourced right here,” said woodshop manager Nathan Fohrman. “I don’t foresee that affecting us at all, even the brands that we're distributing (are) mostly U.
S.-based. Not saying anything else won't go up, but I don’t foresee that affecting us in any adverse way,” Austin Fohrman said.
While the sawmill and woodworking businesses wait to see how the economic climate will impact them, area leaders say they’ll continue doing the work like they have for decades. As one of the few sawmills left in Southeast Minnesota, Root River Hardwoods employs 42 people. Caledonia has a stave mill, Staggemeyer Stave Company, which produces barrel staves and headings from the area’s white oak.
There are also small mills, such as Red Fern Design in Rushford and Brent Dietrich's Wood in Millville. Northern Minnesota’s mills focus on pulp and paper mills for items such as paper and toilet paper. ADVERTISEMENT The mills in Winona were once pillars of the lumber business that flowed through on the Mississippi River.
All along the river, Minnesota’s river mills closed in 1870 due to the amount of sawdust, and in 1878 Minnesota’s wood production could circle the globe, according to University of Minnesota Forestry Extension professor and educator Angela Gupta. In recent years, employment and specifically retirements have had an impact on businesses. From 2013 to 2022, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development reported a steady increase in the percentage of agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry employees age 65 and older.
That topped at 10.3%. Meanwhile, the group comprising the largest share of employees is 25 to 44 years old, at 40.
6% in 2022. Nigon said his business is “in the middle of a generational shift,” as new team members have been added to work alongside the experienced cabinetmakers. The specialized trade depends on experiential learning that becomes a lifetime of learning with wood, he said.
“The thing that keeps me awake at night the most is just getting good quality human beings to work with us here and retaining them,” Nigon said. The sawmill and lumber businesses also tend to be a family affair. ADVERTISEMENT The leadership team at Root River has always included a range of ages and generations.
Andy Bahl joined the company with his dad Dick and mom Carolyn in 1988. Bahl described working with his dad as “hand in hand” mostly. And Merritt’s son, Brett, runs the Albert Lea store and showroom.
Nigon’s father, Daryl Nigon, who retired in 2023, started the business as Nigon Woodcraft. “You can make anything out of wood,” Andy Nigon said. “There’s the details.
I love the smell of wood. I love the sound of ..
. woodworking machines running. It's very familiar to me, makes me feel like I'm at home.
” Across the state, there are around 15.8 million acres of commercially productive forest land, most of which is located in northern Minnesota, according to the Department of Natural Resources. The Minnesota Forest Resources Council notes Southeast Minnesota has about 725,000 forest acres.
The forest lands in Southeast Minnesota are largely on private land, Gupta said. “It’s almost a forgotten part of the state as far as timber harvesting,” said Wand, one of the owners of Root River Hardwoods. He purchases their standing timber, Merritt works on log grading and Bahl runs the sawmill.
Versatile, Root River and Nigon all use locally-sourced timber for a variety of their projects. Root River harvests most of its trees from a 100- to 150-mile radius, Nigon utilizes trees harvested in the Rochester area as well as northern Minnesota, and Versatile gets its timber from the St. Charles area.
Root River and Nigon supplement their supply with imported wood from Canada, which is used for specific home projects like millwork, cabinet pieces or custom projects where the type of wood is not available in Minnesota. People will travel an hour or more to purchase a custom piece from Versatile. The Fohrmans work with a “niche” of hobbyists, Nathan said, including offering charcuterie board classes.
People can also pay hourly rates for woodshop services. Austin Fohrman said using local timber means the customer gets a unique wood creation. They regularly use oak, ash, walnut and maple, though “we always have a rotating inventory of different materials,” Nathan Fohrman said.
With the seasonal tree service from spring to late fall, they own or rent five sites for their business aspects. “We live in ..
. a good nook in Minnesota where we have access to a lot of different natural hardwoods. We've got oak, hickory, maple, walnut, ash, elm.
There's a lot of deciduous hardwoods in this area that we already have access to (for our inventory),” Nathan Fohrman said. Their custom-made pieces highlight the tree’s shape. Nathan Fohrman said the live edges are more expensive than dimensional lumber, which is cut to a uniform size.
“Even if you look at two slabs that are out of the same log, there's different parts inside of that. Just the figuring, the size, the shape. You can't have two that are the same,” Austin Fohrman said.
“I think that this is a massive appeal to a very specific demographic that's like, ‘I'm looking for something unique.’ In that sense, it's almost art.” In the 1980s, Root River started with a 10- to 15-mile radius harvesting red oaks, which grow in the hills and valleys of the area and were popular at the time.
White and bur oaks, grown in the flats, are a “hot commodity” currently, Wand said. They purchase 4 million feet of logs yearly and about 500,000 feet are sold. The logs become simple and complex pieces, including bark for landscaping, firewood slab bundles and bedding with the sawdust.
They also work with an Amish mill in Canton. With expansion planned on the tree line, Root River Hardwoods is excited to have the new investors “take it to the next level,” as Merritt said. Most importantly, Bahl said, “we’re still here” continuing the legacy and offering more services.
“You’d be surprised how much the community relies on the sawdust, the slabs for firewood, the lumber, the employment,” Wand said. “There’s a lot of things that go into this company that you know, we probably haven’t even given that much thought to but it’s definitely made a difference, hopefully.” Whether for logs or sawmill-made products, Root River serves “a lot of the same customers from the very beginning,” Bahl said.
“We don’t mind selling a board. ..
. And we sell some customers million-plus-dollar projects,” Root River CEO Jon Summers said. “That’s just fun to see that we are so linked to both this community but also the broader community of our customers in a way that makes this team matter.
” Root River has custom wood creations, including mouldings and curved millwork, in luxury home projects on Lake Minnetonka, west of Minneapolis. Their typical homes are sized around 10,000 square feet with their largest project at 60,000 square feet, Bahl said. “We get people from the Twin Cities that will come down and you can pick out your lumber there, which is really unique because we have so many different species,” especially hardwood lumber, Bahl said of the store in Albert Lea.
Nigon said his company's year-round jobs include kitchens, bathrooms, furniture or built-ins. They focus on remodel projects rather than new construction homes. Their solid wood is from Rochester with sheet goods from northern Minnesota.
“We don't have necessarily a line of cabinets that you would see if you went to Menards or IKEA,” Nigon said. “We'll meet with the customer, take measurements of the room, figure out what it is that they want in their kitchen and truly customize it to that.”.
