local impact
The Village Green Resort Motor Hotel, opened in 1960, featuring large elegant rooms, luxurious furnishings and fine dining situated on 36 acres of pastoral land.
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Developing Cottage Grove
With the W.A. Woodard Lumber Company serving as a model for post WW II economic development, W.A., his son Carlton, and later three grandsons–Kim, Kris and Casey–would continue in the tradition of community evolution and growth, diversifying into other business ventures in the Greater Cottage Grove Area and beyond.
Kimwood Corporation
From 1951 to 1957 Kimwood was a job shop, the location from which the W.A. Woodard Lumber company staged modernization of the sawmill, dry kilns and planning mill as well as construction of a complete plywood plant.
In 1957 the W.A. Woodard Lumber Company was sold to the Weyerhaeuser Company. Kimwood began its evolution into a proprietary manufacturer of machinery and handling equipment for the emerging wood products industry worldwide.
Original Kimwood building under construction, 1951
Kimwood sander ready to transport, 1963
In the early 1960s, new plywood plant expansion across the U.S. prompted the necessity for better ways to sand and handle plywood panels. Kimwood began to grow into this market and, in 1963, secured patents and exclusive rights to manufacture sanding and handling equipment. The company engineered and manufactured its first plywood grade and sorting line for Medford Corporation.
Throughout the years, Kimwood acquired and relocated to its Cottage Grove facility addition- al product lines. In 1970, at the height of the post WW II worldwide economic expansion, Kim- wood had 175 employees manufacturing and delivering multiple-head, high-speed sanders along with planers, resaws and other industrial equipment to customers worldwide.
In August of 2018, Kimwood was acquired by Murray Latta Progressive Machine Inc., a Cana- dian corporation, which continues to operate as a local employer in Cottage Grove, Oregon. From inception to the date of sale, five generations of the Woodard family worked at Kim- wood.
The Village Green Resort and Motor Hotel
Several years following the sale of the W.A. Woodard Lumber Company, knowing Interstate 5 was soon to traverse the Willamette Valley, W.A., with his son Carlton and grandson Kim, set his entrepreneurial sights toward design and construction of a world class resort motor hotel.
In 1960, the Village Green Resort Motor Hotel opened to national acclaim. With its large, elegant rooms distinguished by luxurious furnishings, situated on 36-acres of pastoral land on the outskirts of Cottage Grove, the Village Green Resort and Motor Hotel become one of America’s most recognized and longest contiguous winner of the prestigious Mobile 5-Star / 5-Diamond Award.
Governor Hatfield dedicating the Presidential Suite at The Village Green in 1960. (Right) Guests and personnel celebrate the Grand Opening of the Village Green Motor Hotel, in 1960.
It represented the passing of an era for W.A., from that of being a fiercely independent lumberman to an emerging leader in a time of excitement and intrigue as Americans took to the new interstate highway system to see the country by automobile.
In 1973, the three-generation family team, having met with success locally in the hospitality business, ventured north to Eugene where they partnered with several other Lane County business families to develop the highly acclaimed Valley River Inn.
The Village Green Resort and Motor Hotel sold in February of 1986 but continues today as an Oregon landmark property. The Valley River Inn was sold in 1996.
Middlefield Village Golf Course and Estates
When scouting locations for the Village Green Resort Motor Hotel in the late 1940s, W.A. ac- quired land near the Interstate 5 freeway, which was still under construction. The motel was finished long before the freeway and the ongoing road construction, as well as unpleasant aromas from a nearby dairy farm, began to bother visitors to the Village Green.
Ever the strategist, Walter traded land he owned just north of Cottage Grove for the land on which the dairy farm resided, resulting in a buffer zone of peace and tranquility for motel guests.
In time, this move gave rise to yet another Woodard family business. In 1990, four years after the Village Green Resort Motor Hotel was sold, W.A.’s grandsons, Kris and Casey, transformed 125-acres of the former dairy farm into the 18-hole Middlefield Village Golf Course and Driv- ing Range. The golf course opened in 1991, and soon thereafter, construction commenced on the 100-lot Middlefield Estates residential community, resulting in the national award-winning Middlefield Village Golf Course and Estates.
Today, the golf course is owned by the city of Cottage Grove and the homes that constitute Middlefield Estates are individually owned with an accompanying homeowner’s association. In 1973, the three-generation family team, having met with success locally in the hospitality business, ventured north to Eugene where they partnered with several other Lane County business families to develop the highly acclaimed Valley River Inn.
Kris Woodard reviewing plan for Middlefield Village Golf Course and Estates in 1990
Middlefield Golf Course, 1998
