The Lumber Boom of 1887
Seattle's bustling mills are running night and day to keep up with the frantic demand for timber, driving labor wages and export prices to new heights.
The lumber business on Puget Sound is becoming very active. As cargo vessels are made ready, the demand continues to exceed the supply. Mills are running to the extent of their reasonable capacity, and on full time, the larger ones being especially busy. In response to this favorable state of demand, prices have advanced from the stump to the dock. Laborers in the logging camps now get from $30 to $40 a month and found, lath is bringing $2 a thousand, and rough merchantable lumber is quoted at $12, with other grades in proportion. The local demand for lumber is largely on account of the activity in building all around the Sound.
“Laborers in the logging camps now get from $30 to $40 a month and found... the local demand for lumber is largely on account of the activity in building all around the Sound.”
This 1887 report captures the early, raw extraction-based economy that built Seattle, where timber was the literal fuel for expansion. Much like today’s construction booms, the scarcity of labor and the pressure on housing infrastructure—seen here as demand for lumber—remain fundamental tensions in Seattle’s growth cycle.
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