In 1974, Plum Creek, a subsidiary of the Burlington Northern Railroad, built the area’s first fiberboard plant. The idea was to make sawdust and other wood waste into a usable product using adhesives and high-pressure hot presses. The plant cost $10.5 million and was expected to utilize 108,000 tons of wood waste annually. The initial plant was expected to produce about 70 million square feet of fiberboard a year and the would employ about 115 workers. “The use of spruce, pine and western conifers is expected to give the product a superior edge,” plant officials said during a July 1974 tour with Burlington Northern brass. Today the MDF plant is owned by Weyerhaeuser and hums along almost as it did 50 years ago, but with plenty of technological advances. …The company is one of the largest employers in Flathead. It employs around 200 people at the Columbia Falls MDF facility and more than 500 people in the valley.