Rose City Archery History

Port Orford Cedar is a false cedar and is believed to have descended from the Japanese Hinoki Tree, which is highly valued in Japan. It is believed that the seeds were adrift on the Japanese current and they landed in an area of the southern Oregon coast tens of thousands of years ago. As they took root and began to flourish they spread inland about eighty miles, south and north about fifty miles.

The Siskiyou National Forest is largely made up of these magnificent trees, which have been prized for their straight grain and aromatic scent. The wood is also extremely resistant to insects and decay, it has been used for many things including: battery separators, mill work, boats, railroad ties and for the finest wood archery arrow shafts because of it's strength and straight grain.

Port Orford Cedar has been the wood of choice for many traditional archers such as Howard Hill.

Port Orford Cedar Oil (Rose of Cedar) is used all over the world today for aromatherapy, cosmetics, personal and environmental deodorizers, pet grooming products, insect repellents, cleaners and disinfectants. Port Orford Cedar Oil has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties as well as keeping bugs and insects away. These attributes combined with being an all natural, non-toxic repellent, makes Port Orford Cedar an ideal essential Oil.

Rose City Archery, Inc. and Port Orford Cedar We are the largest manufacturer of Port Orford Cedar Shafts in the World today. RCA makes approximately 2.5 million wood arrow shafts per year and sales are growing every year. With the completion of our 25,000 sq. ft. plant in 1994 which included upgrades to all of our machinery, we turned Rose City Archery into a state of the art wood arrow manufacturer. We have a two and 1/2 year supply of Port Orford Cedar wood on hand with more coming in every day.

Rose City Archery, Inc. was founded in 1932 in Portland, Oregon, originally manufacturing archery bows as well as Port Orford Cedar arrows and has been in continuous operation ever since. RCA. now ships finished arrows, wood arrow shafting, accessories, oil and other Port Orford Cedar products world-wide. We are one of the few and by far the biggest manufacturer of Port Orford Cedar wood arrows and shafts as well as Port Orford Cedar oil in the world.  Our by-products are sold as garden stakes, and the sawdust is sold for use in aroma therapy and for distilling Port Orford Cedar Oil which is sold asRose of Cedar TM. We have very little waste.

We have many employees, consisting of local men and women, several are second generation arrow industry employees and some have been with us more than 20 years. The Port Orford Cedar trees we use at Rose City Archery, Inc. are all down trees that have been dead for up to hundreds of years; some were killed in ancient forest fires, some are uncovered from the construction of new cranberry bogs where they have been buried for many years, some are from incidental logging operations where the logs are salvaged. In most cases we fly out the Port Orford Cedar logs with helicopters (see picture) so that no motorized equipment goes into the forest, the loggers have to pack their saws and equipment in on their backs or by mule or horse, we do not use live or fresh cut trees. We get our cedar wood from the US Forest Service, private wood products companies and private landowners, as salvaged wood, the supply is constant.