Sierra Pacific Industries founder Archie “Red” Emerson has picked up a few dollars recently, according to the Forbes Magazine list of America’s richest people. He’s long been California’s largest private land owner, and the country’s third, with nearly 2 Million acres of timberland in California and Washington. Emmerson is tied with 4 other billionaires, including Ross Perot, at a ranking of 167th in the United States. A year ago the Forbes list said Red Emmerson was worth $3.5 Billion. Now they say he’s worth $4.2 Billion. The 88-year-old Emerson and his father Curly established Sierra Pacific in the City of Anderson in 1949 and took it public in 1969. Four years later he bought it all back. In 1988 his company took out a loan of 460-Million Dollars to buy 522-Thousand acres from Santa Fe Southern Pacific Railroad. Most of that land had been granted to the railroad by the federal government as they expanded through the west in the 19th century, and the purchase gave Sierra-Pacific a virtually endless bank of timber holdings. Emerson is married and has 3 children. His two sons run the company now, though Red is still at the office almost every day. He lives off of Smith Road on the bank of the Sacramento River between Redding and Anderson.