For over a century, the Nist family has continuously owned, managed, and operated the company, producing wooden crates, boxes, containers, and other wood products.

In addition to wooden boxes and crates, today the company produces packaging supplies, bags, strapping, pallets, fuel pellets, portable moving and storage vaults, and seafood containers.

[3][4] By 1888, Nist and his sons Michael, Jacob J., George, and Aloys were all working at the Seattle Lumber and Commercial Company,[5][6] which was operating 20 hours per day and had added a new box factory.

[7] To continue providing for the family after the fire, Nist and sons established the Queen City Box Manufacturing company and began production in October 1889.

[10] The company objectives were to "manufacture, buy, sell and deal in all kinds of lumber, sashes, doors, window blinds, molding, stairs, stair rails and banisters, and all kinds of woodwork and finishing material−to operate sawmills, sash and door factories, shingle mills, box factories, and to build houses, deal in timber and own land.

"[11] Seattle experienced rapid growth in the 1890s, as did the new company, despite the temporary setback caused by the economic panic of 1893, which hit the Northwest hard.

[12] The Klondike Gold Rush began in 1897, and according to journalist J. Kingston Pierce, "Elliott Bay became the frenzied embarkation point for tens of thousands of miners shipping north.

[18][19] The new plant occupied an entire city block, and the company's motto was, "A good wood box for the purpose intended at a fair price.

Since horses were no longer needed for delivery, the old stables under the plant were converted to a dry kiln, which allowed the inventory to include a larger variety of dry lumber stock, and ended the need for a lengthy storage period to air-dry the company's large inventory, 14,000,000 board feet (33,000 m3) of lumber.

[22] During the twenties, the Nists also made a strategic decision to serve customers who had to order boxes in small lots, identifying a niche market.

[25] The company dealt with recurring challenges during this decade: collections were slow and prices were reduced to maintain business; the National Recovery Administration controlled both prices and profits under the code of fair competition for lumber and timber products; there were three small fires at the Seattle plant in the thirties; and labor unrest resulted in unionizing the workforce, with a 6-week strike in 1935 as well as a week-long walkout in 1937.

[25] In spite of his previous "hands off" policy toward union organizing, Ferdinand Nist became the lead negotiator for industry in the Pacific Northwest, settling with the Sawmill and Lumber Workers of the American Federation of Labor.

With seven employees, and only the plant supervisor and himself on the regular payroll, Gene took on the role of manager, but also "bookkeeper, buyer, labor negotiator, and troubleshooter".

The company provided two and a half million boxes during World War II, for transportation of munitions, food, and supplies.

The company adopted a new system for coloring boxes in 1957, and in 1958, began using clamp gluing and bulk shipping fasteners developed by North American Aviation.

[30] The company continued its focus on specialty wood products in the 1950s, adding paneling, siding, and furniture assembly parts, as well as large crates for bulk shipping.

[32] According to Wood and Wood Products magazine, "Besides boxes, crates, delivery cases and crating lumber, the company also manufactures such apparently non-related items as bed frames, furniture stock, bread boxes, household bins, bed slats, fence pickets, bird houses, and hanging planter baskets.

[30] By the early sixties, high lumber prices and competition from new materials, such as fiberboard, paper-overlaid veneer, plastic, and metal precipitated revolutionary changes in the container and packaging industry.

[33] Other new products included a unique box made originally in Japan for sujiko (salmon roe); a container developed for the Dole Food Company to transport pineapple juice concentrate; patented nailless bins for shipping cement and salt to Alaska pipeline developers; and money blanks the size of a dollar bill for the U.S. Treasury Department.

[36] The 1970s began with generally difficult circumstances locally: in 1971, a poor salmon run affected demand for sujiko boxes; environmental concerns had repeatedly delayed opening the oil fields in Alaska, affecting orders for the larger containers with a capacity of 2 short tons (1.8 t); and Puget Sound's economy was generally poor, due to layoffs in the airline industry at Boeing.

[38][39] Company officers had already identified a site in Kent of 22 acres (8.9 hectares) alongside the Milwaukie-Union Pacific rail line near the I-405 freeway.

Construction on the $1.5 million plant began in 1974, and by spring 1975, the merger was underway, with 75 employees joining together in the renamed Seattle-Tacoma Box Company.

Seattle-Tacoma Box Company had been providing nailless containers for shipping supplies to the North Slope oil fields in Alaska, and that ongoing relationship led to the development of new tubular packaging systems patented in 1978 and 1980.

[45] In 1985, the company's subsidiary SeaPro systems began manufacturing paper, corrugated, and wood products for foodservice industries.