Wilkinson Lumber Company Architectural Drawings Collection

The Wilkinson Lumber Company was named for Indianapolis businessman Allen A. Wilkinson. Wilkinson attended a business college in Glens Falls, New York, as a teenager before moving to the Midwest with his parents. He started his business career in Muncie, Indiana, in 1882. Ten years later, he and his wife moved to Indianapolis, where he became secretary-treasurer of S. L. Greer Lumber Co., a business owned by his brother-in-law. Eventually, he gained an ownership interest in the business, which became Greer-Wilkinson and then, in 1906, the Allen A. Wilkinson Lumber Co. By the time of his death in 1929, he had opened 36 branch locations and had built a massive woodworking and joinery shop at 907 E. Michigan St. in Indianapolis.

Anna Greer Wilkinson assumed control of the business upon Allen’s death and ran it through the late 1930s. About 1946-47, the name of the firm was changed to Midland Building Industries. The building on Michigan St., then known as the Midland Building, remained actively used for lumber purposes into the 1970s. It exists today as Midland Antique Mall.

Drawings in the collection show that the Wilkinson Lumber Co. offered design services to potential customers at least during the 1930s. This was a widespread practice; several lumber companies offered similar services, and many do so today. No available documents show when the Wilkinson Lumber Company’s design service was initiated or how long it lasted. Indianapolis city directories of 1940 and later, note that the firm offered “wholesale lumber, sash, doors, trim and finish” but do not mention design.