1864 President Abraham Lincoln and Congress approve the Pacific Railroad Act of 1864, granting millions of acres to the Northern Pacific Railway to build a transcontinental line.

1883 The mainline of the Northern Pacific is complete.

1930s D.C. Dunham builds a lumber company in Bemidji, Minn., about 70 miles from a stream known as Plum Creek.

1945 Dunham moves his company from Minnesota to Montana and renames it Plum Creek.

1960s After Dunham’s death, his family sells his Montana lumber mills to Northern Pacific.

1970 Northern Pacific merges with the Great Northern Railway, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway and the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway to form Burlington Northern. Northern Pacific’s timberland holdings, as well as Dunham’s former mills, become part of Burlington Northern.

1989 Burlington Northern divests its timber and mill division and names the new company Plum Creek. The company acquires 1.4 million acres in the Pacific Northwest from Burlington Northern.

1993 Plum Creek acquires 865,000 acres in Montana from Champion International.

1996 Plum Creek purchases 538,000 acres in Louisiana and Arkansas from Riverwood International Corp.

1998 Plum Creek buys 905,000 acres of Maine’s North Woods from Sappi.

1999 The company converts to a real estate investment trust.

2001 Plum Creek merges with The Timber Co., the timber division of Georgia-Pacific Corp. With 7.8 million acres, the new Plum Creek becomes the second-largest private landowner in the U.S.

2002 Company acquires 307,000 acres in Wisconsin.

2003-05 In various transactions, Plum Creek purchases an additional 923,000 acres in Maine, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida and Michigan, becoming the nation’s largest private landowner.