Modern day
The Potlatch mill operated until mid-August 1981,[13][14] and the company announced that mill closure would be permanent in 1983.[15] In 1985, Canadian businessman Samuel Belzberg's First City Financial Corporation attempted a takeover of the company. Potlatch eventually bought back the corporation's 1.1 million shares, paying $8.1 million and ending the takeover bid. With the buyback, the stock returned to the control of the Weyerhaeuser family, the descendants of the original founder.[16]
The Rutledge mill in Coeur d'Alene operated through October 1987;[17][18][19][20][21][22] the site was acquired by Duane Hagadone the following year in a three-way land swap,[23][24] and became the golf course (1991) of the Coeur d'Alene Resort.[25][26][27] Its buildings were allowed to be burned in June 1988; local fire departments used it as a training exercise.[28][29]
After 32 years in San Francisco, California, corporate headquarters of Potlatch were moved from One Maritime Plaza to downtown Spokane in 1997;[30][31][32] from 1931 to 1965, the company was based in Idaho at Lewiston.[33][34]
In March 2002, Potlatch sold its Cloquet, Minnesota, pulp and printing papers facilities and associated assets to Sappi Limited for $480 million. This sale marked its exit from the coated printing papers business. Sappi closed the facilities and moved the production to its own plants in Maine at Skowhegan and Westbrook.[35]
In 2006, Potlatch restructured to form a real estate investment trust (REIT). In this restructuring all of the company's manufacturing operations are held by a wholly owned subsidiary, allowing the company to refocus on managing their large land holdings in Oregon, Idaho, Minnesota, and Arkansas.
In February 2018, Potlatch acquired Deltic Timber Corp., a smaller Arkansas-based timber company. Following the merger, the company was renamed PotlatchDeltic Corporation. The merged companies owned 2 million acres of timber in total.[3][4]
In October 2025, Potlatch and Rayonier agreed to a "merger of equals" in an all-stock deal that would create a $7.1 billion forestry company. The combined entity is expected to own roughly 4.2 million acres of timberland in the US—second only to Weyerhaeuser.[36]
