Actually, the housing market was still going strong well after many of the local mill"s  shut down, the building just continued with more manufactured wood product, and dimension lumber from Canada, at stumpage rates we couldn't hope to match.

 For years it was Japan that was in direct competition with mills here in the states, currently China is a major player, simply because thats where the money is. I'm not saying that all old growth should be logged, but environmental pressures are and will continue to be a huge hurdle to not only logging, but to many manufacturing pursuits, if we hope to leave a livable planet to our children, it will remain a large focus.