Hubert Montgomery didn’t start out in the equipment business. He started out in a sawmill, running logs through a circle saw the same way everyone else did — until he decided the dogging system was fundamentally wrong and set out to fix it.
The Problem He Solved
In the 1950s, Hubert was operating his own sawmill when he identified a consistent failure point in how logs were held during cutting. The existing dogging mechanisms were imprecise, inefficient, and left too much to chance. His solution was the tong dog system — a redesigned approach to the dogging mechanism that gave operators reliable, repeatable clamping and control. He paired it with full knee tapering, which gave sawyers a mechanical advantage on tapered cuts that the industry hadn’t seen before.
He patented both. Those patents became the foundation of everything Montgomery would build for the next seven decades.
Frick Takes Notice
In the 1970s, Frick Company — one of the most respected names in American sawmill manufacturing — recognized what Hubert had built. Frick honored the patent and purchased thousands of Montgomery dog assemblies over the years, integrating them into their own equipment lines. For a small Pennsylvania manufacturer to supply a giant like Frick was no small thing. It was the industry’s validation that Hubert had gotten it right.
During that same period, Hubert’s shop wasn’t standing still. Montgomery was producing some of the first sloped-glass saw cabs in the industry — an ergonomic leap for operators who had been working in poorly ventilated boxes. The shop was also developing cam-style setworks and early hydraulic and hydrostatic feed systems, innovations that reflected a consistent engineering philosophy: find the friction in the sawyer’s day and eliminate it.
Montgomery Mill Supplies Inc was incorporated in 1972, giving the operation a formal structure to match its growing product line.
When Frick Closed
Frick Company closed in 1980. For many of their suppliers, that was a serious blow. For Montgomery, it was less of a crisis than it might have been — by then, the shop had developed a full line of its own sawmill equipment and had built relationships with operators across the country who bought directly. The business absorbed the transition and kept moving.
In the years that followed, Montgomery continued adding carriage models, refining the line, and incorporating improvements based on direct feedback from working sawyers. Hubert’s standard was simple and unyielding: “Give the customer the best you can at a fair price, give him affordable quality.” Every design decision ran through that filter.
Passing the Shop
Hubert T. Montgomery passed away in July 2009. His son, William Montgomery, took on the responsibility of continuing what his father had built — not as a formality, but because the equipment was worth continuing. The carriage lines, the parts inventory, the engineering approach, the direct relationship with customers — all of it carried forward.
Today the equipment is designed and manufactured by Park Manufacturing Inc at 860 New Park Road in New Park, Pennsylvania — the same region where Hubert’s work began. The tong dog system and full knee tapering are still standard features. The product line has grown to include four carriage series (SL, FR, WB, and HD), log handling systems, board handling equipment, laser guides, operator cabs, and a complete parts catalog.
Why It Matters Who Built This
A lot of sawmill equipment is sold by people who didn’t build it. Montgomery equipment is sold by the people who manufacture it, based on a design lineage that goes back to a sawyer who was frustrated enough with the status quo to patent something better. That’s not a marketing angle — it’s just the history.
If you’re looking at circle sawmill equipment and want to talk to someone who understands it from the inside out, call us at 888-806-8805 or email sales@montgomeryequipment.com. Monday through Friday, 8 to 5.
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