1946
Les Kjos establishes Western Woodwork, a cabinet and millwork shop at 1015 East Idaho St, Kalispell.
1954
Ivan O’Neil purchases interest in Western Woodwork and building materials becomes part of the business.
1955
Western Woodwork incorporates and the name changed to Western Woodwork and Supply to more accurately describe the operation.
1964
Western Woodwork and Supply builds new store 1019 East Idaho St., Kalispell.
1969
Western Woodwork and Supply joins Ace Hardware.
1972
Les Kjos, Carle O’Neil, and Ivan O’Neil purchase Columbia Falls Lumber. Carle becomes manager of Columbia Falls Lumber.
1975
Western purchases Lindsey Lumber Co. of Whitefish and the three stores merge into one corporation. The corporate name changed to Western Building Center. Randy Kjos becomes manager of the Whitefish Store.
1976
WBC purchases Lindsey Lumber Co. of Eureka. Dave Lyons becomes manager.
1978
Doug Shanks becomes manager of Western Building Center Columbia Falls.
1981
Randy Kjos, Dave Lyon, Craig Maltby, Doug Shanks, and Bill Schottelkorb buy stock in Western Building Center joining Les Kjos, Carle O’Neil, and Ivan O’Neil.
Bill Schottelkorb becomes manager of Western Building Center of Whitefish.
1983
Western buys Peavy Thunderbird Home Center of Kalispell.
Bill Schottelkorb becomes manager of the Peavy store.
Craig Maltby becomes manager of the Idaho Street store.
Doug Shanks becomes the manager of both the Whitefish and Columbia Falls stores. Randy Kjos becomes corporate purchasing agent.
1984
Carle O’Neil resigns to accept place in Washington D.C.
1985
Les Kjos retires.
1988
Les Kjos, WBC founder, dies.
1994
Constructed new store in Whitefish.
1996
Western Building Center starts Western Building Center Insulation and Building Specialties as an insulation contracting business in Whitefish.
Ivan O’Neil retires as General Manager of Western Building Center.
Doug Shanks takes Ivan’s place as General Manager. Jeff Nelson becomes manager of the Whitefish store and Howard Ficek becomes manager of the Columbia Falls store. Ivan O’Neil remains Chairman of the Board of Directors.
1997
Western buys Libby Building Center. Rich Burns becomes manager of the Libby Store.
2000
Rich Burns, Howard Ficek and Jeff Nelson become shareholders of Western Building Center.
Western acquires Woody’s Big Sky Supply in Polson, Ronan, and Plains. Dave Ottun, Don Kocubinski and Jeff Martin remain as managers.
2002
Western constructs new 16,000 sq. ft. store in Columbia Falls at 1550 9th St. W.
2003
Rich Burns retires and Karla Miller becomes manager of the Libby store. Howard Ficek moves to the corporate yard to manage operations and Eric Martin becomes the manager of the Columbia Falls store.
2004
Howard Ficek becomes Information Technologies Manager to take over Western Building Centers’ new consolidated computer system.
2005
Mark Anderson becomes a stockholder.
2006
Dave Lyons retires from the Eureka Store. Steve Leigh take his place.
2007
Dave Ottun, Don Kocubinski and Eric Martin become shareholders of Western Building Center.
Remodeled and added new addition to the Whitefish Store
Remodeled and doubled size of the Kalispell Store.
2008
Jeff Nelson retires, and Mark Anderson takes over as Whitefish Store Manager.
Western builds WBC Truss and Building Components plant in Columbia Falls with Donald McGrady as manager.
2009
Eureka Store gets expanded and built new drive through lumberyard.
2010
Western Building Center purchases Stevensville Hardware, renovates it and adds drive through lumberyard. Rod Hunter becomes manager.
Steve Leigh retires from WBC Eureka and Scott Messick becomes manager.
WBC Insulation division is closed.
2011
Western Building Center opens new Culbertson store. Manager Jeff Martin from the Plains store moves to manage the new Culbertson store.
2012
Ty Shanks and Mike Hammett take over as managers for WBC Kalispell replacing Bill Schottelkorb.
Josh Maltby Moves to Manager of Evergreen Western Building Center retiring Craig Maltby.
Randy Kjos retires from Western Building Center.
Brent Hartley is new manager of Western Building Center Distribution Center.
2013
Cammi Navarro becomes the new manager of WBC Libby.
2014
Don Kocubinski retires and Mike Hinman becomes new manager of WBC Ronan.
Western Building Center completes construction of its new truss plant in Columbia Falls.
Kelly Murphy replaces Rod Hunter as manager of the Stevensville store.
2015
All locations managers become shareholders in Western Building Center.
2016
Mark Anderson becomes General Manager, taking over for Doug Shanks. Doug becomes director of outside sales. Scott Moseley becomes manager of the Whitefish location and becomes a shareholder.
2020
Western Building Center closes the Culbertson location.