and looked after the legal matters of Tartar and Webster. The Stockton Box Company, under what became Tartar, Webster & Johnson, Inc., flourished. Johnson soon learned the ropes, selling large quantities of wooden crates to suppliers and directly to fruit growers and canneries. Soon, Tartar, Webster & Johnson, Inc. enlarged its holdings by acquiring interests in several other box and lumber companies. Johnson foresaw the need to control the raw materials that were the heart of the box business. He was also convinced that lumber would be highly valued commodity as industry and population grew. San Francisco became the center of the lumber business and Johnson operated an office at 1 Montgomery Street, in the Crocker Bank Building. Unfortunately, his friends and partners in the box company were not eager to branch out. Tartar and Webster sold out to Johnson, keeping the Stockton Box Company under their own guidance. Several years later, the three reunited as Johnson's vision began to pay off. The reunited corporation became the American Forest Products Corporation. The year was 1927 and the new corporation soon encircled a wide range of forest products. Besides the box industry, there were timber holdings, saw mills, re-manufacturing plants and complete lumber sales and distribution divisions. With good management and strong business ethics, it weathered the depression and by the end of World War II, the corporation was a multimillion-dollar operation. It was during the depression years that Johnson met Carl Friden, a Swedish-born engineer who had perfected and patented a revolutionary calculator. Friden had been very successful with his designs, but had met ruin with the stock market crash of 1929. In 1933, after Friden had spent years trying to perfect his product and find backers, he met Charles Gruenhagen, Johnson's brother-in-law. Gruenhagen was intrigued by Friden's accomplishments and introduced him to Johnson and members of the AFPC board. Friden proposed selling half interest to Johnson for $25,000, the funds to get his company off the ground. Johnson split the obligation with his partners and the Friden company began production. Johnson's investment paid off well. Friden's plant in San Leandro, California grew to consist of of facilities and employed over 500 people. During World War II, the plant was restricted to making only 25 calculators a day, while the skilled machinists and engineers were redirected to make complicated bomb fuses and tachometers. After the war, the plant continued to