Thomas E. Kinney was born Jan. 4, 1888. In the spring of the 1925, he arrived in Headquarters as the logging superintendent of the Clearwater Timber Company. According to the book White Pines and Fires: Cooperative Forestry in Idaho by A.B. Bert) Curtis Kinney told him that he had been employed to lay out logging plans and develop the company's railway from Headquarters to Beaver Creek so that Clearwater Timber could get into Beaver Creek for logging operations.

Kinney came from Montana to Idaho as a skilled lumberman. He asked Curtis where he could bunk and make his headquarters. Curtis told him he could have the bunk next to him and they could share an apple box between the two bunks for alarm clocks and other such items. The first thing Kinney took out of his packsack and put on the apple box was a photo of his wife, Grace. They soon became friends and Kinney told Curtis that his wife was one of the Rankin family from Montana. Grace's sister, Jeanette, was the first congresswoman from Montana to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Tom and Grace had three children, Janet, John and Tom Jr. Grace and the children came to Headquarters when school ended. The family lived in a house in Pierce until the company built them a home in Headquarters in 1928.

Kinney had started out as a lumberjack in the spring of 1907. From there he went to Montana and formed a partnership in the logging industry with Wilmer Tindell. When he came to Headquarters, he sold out his logging outfit. Clearwater Timber Company bought his 12 teams of logging horses and they were trailed from Montana over Lolo Pass to Pierce with the rigging tied to them. The company also bought some of his logging equipment.

One of the first things Tom did was to get a portable saw mill to cut lumber for the Headquarters camp. He needed a steam engine to run it and Bert helped him purchase one from Phoebe Carr. It took a crew cutting a road 14 feet wide to get it from the Carrs on Fords Creek to Headquarters. Then Tom hired a man to run the sawmill. The lumber was used to build the Headquarters camp.

Tom and Bert came to be lifelong friends and Tom was very helpful in Bert's work He even helped Bert to get married to a "wonderful girl" who was an instructor at University of Idaho at the time.

Tom died in August 1964 at age 76. He is buried in Coeur d'Alene's Forst Cemetery beside his wife, Grace, who died 10 years earlier.

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