page_title: Hoffman Construction Company
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Hoffman Construction Company / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Oregon State Library Category:Images of Salem
context_page_description: Hoffman Construction Company is a privately held construction founded in 1922. It is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. It also has an office location in Seattle. With a revenue of US$1.4 billion in FY2017, Hoffman was the 4th largest privately held company in Oregon and SW Washington by revenue in FY2017. It was the second largest general contractor in the Portland metro area in April 2019.
context_section_description: Lee Hoffman (born May 15, 1850) moved to Portland in the 1870s with his family and worked constructing bridges and other projects until his death, including the Bull Run pipeline. After his accidental death on July 21, 1895, his wife Julia removed to Boston, Massachusetts, with their children, including Lee Hawley Hoffman. Lee Hawley entered Harvard College in 1902, but the family returned to Oregon partly in 1903. Lee Hawley graduated with a degree in architecture from Harvard in 1906, and the family returned to Portland that year, living in their home on NW 23rd avenue. Portland Business Journal reported Hoffman as the second largest general contractor in the Portland metro area in place as the second largest general contractor in the Portland area in April 2019.
  The Hoffmans still owned various real estate in Portland due to the success of Lee Hoffman's earlier construction businesses, and they were turned into the family owned Wauna Land Company in 1903. Lee Hawley began working for Morris H. Whitehouse’s architectural firm in 1908, with the firm later also consisting of Edgar M. Lazarus and J. André Fouilhoux. Hoffman then married Caroline Couch Burns on June 9, 1910. Over time, Hoffman began to focus more on projects for Wauna Land Company and less on his architectural work, leaving the firm by 1917. He started working as a contractor in 1919, and by the end of 1921 had the firm of Hoffman & Rasmussen. The current company was founded in 1922 by Hoffman.
  The company started out building primarily apartment buildings and industrial structures in Portland, and had grown to more than 400 employees by 1928. One of the company's first prominent projects was building the Terminal Sales Building in 1926. The next year Hoffman completed the Public Services Building, which was the tallest building in the city upon completion. That year they also built the new Heathman Hotel, the Portland Theater, and an office building all on the same block on Broadway in downtown Portland. In 1928, Hoffman constructed the 12-story Buyer's Building (now Loyalty Building) in just over six months.
  Hoffman expand to Seattle in 1929 with the construction of a 12-story apartment building at 1223 Spring Street. The firm also built Cushman Dam No. 2 that year near Shelton, Washington, for Tacoma Power and Light.
  After the onset of the Great Depression, projects for the firm mostly dried up. Hoffman went from 32 contracts in 1929 to just ten in 1932. The last big project was a joint venture on expanding the Meier & Frank Building in Portland in 1930, with the next large project not coming until ten years later. In 1932, the firm moved its offices into the Ladd Carriage House, where it remained until 1970. During the Depression, much of the company's work shifted to government contracts, such as post offices in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Those included large ones in Salem, Longview, and Marshfield (now Coos Bay). Other public works included the Jackson County Courthouse, Tillamook County Courthouse, the Oregon State Library, the Quartz Creek Bridge on U.S. 26, Powerhouse No. 1 on the Bonneville Dam, and several viaducts in Oregon. Hoffman also built the Portland Art Museum in 1931 and its 1938 expansion, as well as a new library at Willamette University in Salem (now Smullin Hall).
  With World War II raging elsewhere, the firm was contracted to build several buildings at Fort Lewis and a new hospital at the Vancouver Barracks in 1940, and barracks for the Navy in Bremerton in 1941, all in Washington. They also built the hospital at the Cushman Indian School in Tacoma, Washington, in 1941.
  Following the entry of the United States into the war, Hoffman continued work on military projects including more buildings for the Navy in Bremerton and construction on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and surrounding area, both as joint projects with other firms. In all, Hoffman did $49 million in work for the federal government during World War II, including work at Camp Abbot, Camp Adair, Umatilla Army Depot, and a Navy hospital in Astoria, all in Oregon. Othe
caption: Oregon State Library in Salem
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