Our History

Lumber King was formed in 1960 as “King Lumber Company”, a partnership between Stearns Coal & Lumber Company and Ronald King, a McCreary County KY businessman, in Stearns KY. The company processed lumber and sold it to customers throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana. As King Lumber Company continued to grow locally it added building supplies, hardware, electrical and plumbing supplies in order to accommodate its customers.

The company formed King Building Materials, Inc. a subsidiary of King Lumber Company, in September of 1969, in Oneida TN. The location was the company’s first retail location and soon incorporated a wide range of contractor services.

Upon Ronald King’s death in 1978, Dwayne King, Ronald’s son, succeeded to the Presidency of the Company. In 1979, King Lumber Company and King Building Materials merged into one company and was renamed Lumber King, Inc. The Company moved its operations from Stearns KY to a new retail store in Whitley City KY.

In 1981 Railum, Inc bought the Stearns Coal & Lumber Company interest in Lumber King. The Companies were reorganized in 1992 with Railum, being merged into Lumber King. As part of that reorganization the Company formed an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, in which 51% of the company stock was sold to the ESOP. Over the years as Lumber King continued to grow, the ESOP was able to purchase the remaining stock to become 100% employee owned in 2020.

Lumber King operates as a retail hardware and building supply chain headquartered in Whitley City, KY in McCreary County. The company currently operates five retail operations and a truss shop in Whitley City, KY; Oneida, TN; Mt. Vernon, KY; Somerset, KY; and Danville, KY.