The David Baird Company was founded by Irish immigrant David Baird Sr. in 1878. A protege of William Joyce Sewell, David Baird Sr. found a great success in the lumber business, and after Sewell’s death in 1901, led the Republican party in Camden for many years. David Baird’s business was national in nature, as he had lumber operations in eight states and operated ship’s spar yards in five different cities.
When David Baird Sr. passed in 1927, his son, David Baird Jr. took control of the company.
Much of the business of the David Baird Company was in lumber used in ship and barge construction. When the demand for wooden ships began to fall off after 1935, and the increased use of reinforced steel in construction. business declined. David Baird Jr., who was more heavily involved in the insurance business as president of the Smith-Austermuhl Insurance Agency, closed the yard and sold off its assets in June of 1950.
The site of the Baird lumberyard was the location of the Campbell Field baseball stadium, built in 1999 and torn down by 2018.
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