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Bohrnstedt proves a ‘true salesman’ in orchard era

In 1911, A.C. Bohrnstedt personally moved from Minneapolis to Salem to oversee the new project, but by most accounts, he still participated in the Creswell branch of his holdings by including it in all of his advertising. With the energies of the parent, A.C. Bohrnstedt Company, focused on the new project in Salem, the A.C. Bohrnstedt Orchard Company, continued to oversee the operations in Creswell. It was at this time that the 28-piece “What We Do”/”How We Do It” daily promotional series was published in the Salem newspapers during November and December of 1911. In many of the later chapters, A.C. reveals what a true salesman he was in getting people from out of state to buy not only orchard properties to invest in, but home properties. He expounded on his “Business Sharing” theories in Chapters 13 and 14 in which he tries to explain the complex reasoning behind setting up subsidiary companies that would supposedly grow investments. In Chapters 17 and 18, he gets into the “Why We Do It” portion of his presentations. Later chapters deal with “How Bohrnstedt Put the Dollar to Work” in Chapter 20; and “City vs Orchard Homes” in Chapter 22 that discusses the importance of having successful and up-scale neighbors. Chapter 25 deals with “Overproduction” where he tries to explain away the rumblings about overproduction of the Oregon fruit industry by saying, “… It has always been and will always be true that enough of the high grade, first class product cannot be produced. There is always an over-supply of undesirable products.” And in Chapter 26 he talks about “Taxable Neatness” and the importance of keeping property neat and orderly: “One man at Creswell told us only last week that ‘our coming in there and cleaning up, developing and advertising the land we had, there was so much benefit to him that if he were to give us outright $2,400 he would not be giving us more than 8 percent of what our work had made for him.’” During the first years of the “Bohrnstedt Boom” period, both the orchard business and Creswell’s population flourished, but there were a few wrinkles that still needed to be worked out along the way.

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