History & Legacy

We started as a small residential plumbing business in Longview, Washington, founded in 1923 by Jack Henry Kelly Sr. Over a century has passed since then, and we have grown from those humble beginnings to become one the largest mechanical, electrical, plumbing, industrial, service, and maintenance contractors in the Pacific Northwest. We’re proud of our long and rich history in the region and the family legacy that Jack built.

Journey to Longview

Jack Kelly Sr. emigrated from Scotland to Toronto, Ontario in the early 1900s. From there, he slowly emigrated west, with brief stops in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Lethbridge, Alberta before settling down in Prince Rupert, B.C. At every stop, Jack started a new plumbing business and a local soccer team.

After nearly 20 years in Canada, Jack got tired of the weather and decided to head south to investigate sunny Long Beach, California in 1923. But on his trek south, he made a stop in southwest Washington that changed everything.

In 1923, the Long Bell Timber Company

was in the midst of simultaneously constructing the largest sawmill in the world and a planned city on the banks of the Columbia River in the newly coined Longview,

Washington. Following the vision of Robert A. Long, a founder of the company and the town’s principal benefactor, Long Bell was transforming a lowland bog into a city built to support both the company’s mill and timber operations and future industry. The plan included an ambitious streetscape, beautiful park system, recreational facilities, schools, commercial districts, residential neighborhoods, and a centerpiece hotel. Jack knew they would need a good plumber, so he scrapped his plans for California and came to Longview instead, eventually opening an office on Commerce Avenue in the city’s emerging downtown.

True to form, he also started a new soccer team called the Longview Timber Barons, primarily composed of immigrants who had come to the “new country” after WWI. In the early years, the soccer team was more successful than the plumbing business. The Timber Barons won the Governor’s Cup and multiple Oregon and Washington State Championships, while the business kept pace with the town’s needs for the next few decades.

Evolving Through the Decades

By the mid-1960s, the region’s economy was bustling and industrial construction work was proving to be more attractive. The company had transitioned to a new owner, Jack Kelly Jr., and he knew that to continue to grow, the company would have to evolve beyond the commercial and residential sectors. Still the second largest plumbing contractor in the town, JH Kelly cautiously began to step into the industrial market.

In the early 1970s, Jack Kelly Jr.’s son-in-law, Dan Evans, bought the business and became the new head of JH Kelly. Under Dan’s leadership and with the support of his long-time friend and JH Kelly employee, Terry Major, the company made the decision to pivot away from residential plumbing work and focus exclusively on commercial and industrial plumbing and mechanical work. It was a big risk, but it paid off.

Dramatic Growth

By the mid-1980s, JH Kelly had expanded its workforce nearly forty-fold to handle the influx of industrial work. By the late 1990s, the company had further evolved to incorporate additional trades, broadening our span of control and ability to deliver higher quality products to our clients in both the commercial and industrial sectors. In 2002, Jack Sr.’s great-grandson, Mason Evans, became President of JH Kelly and he continues to run the company today, now in its 4th generation of family ownership.

Over a century after being founded, we now employ 1,500 staff and work on some of the largest multi-million-dollar construction projects in the region. On the other end of the spectrum, we also offer our customers robust emergency and preventative maintenance services for refrigeration, HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. Although we might look like a different business than the one Jack started in 1923, we are fundamentally the same. Our success is built on the quality of our people and the product that we deliver to our clients. Whether it be a massive capital project or a quick service job, each project we perform is as important to us as it is to you.