The Great Shingle Train of 1892
A record-breaking shipment of 5,000,000 red cedar shingles from Ballard mills highlights the rapid industrial growth of a young Seattle.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The largest train load of shingles that was ever shipped from Seattle left the depot of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern road yesterday. The train was made up at Ballard, and that place had the appearance of a metropolitan railroad center yesterday morning. There was a long line of freight cars, beginning at the foot of Second Avenue and extending in a semi-circular line almost to the bridge over Salmon Bay. Thirty-eight of these cars were loaded with over 5,000,000 red cedar shingles from the Stimson Mill Company and from the West Coast Manufacturing and Investment Company’s mill. Twenty-two of the cars, containing 3,000,000 red cedar shingles, were shipped by the Stimson Mill Company, and sixteen, containing 2,000,000, from the West Coast Manufacturing and Investment Company’s mills, were consigned to various points in the East between Omaha and Chicago. Each mill company made a special effort to advertise their products during their long journey East by striking and attractive labels placed on the sides of each car. Mr. Fletcher, of the West Coast Manufacturing and Investment Company, had tastefully and ingeniously displayed upon the sides of each car a number of ornamental designs made with ornamental and plain shingles, consisting of stars, circles, and crosses, set off with United States flags. I. A. Nadeau, superintendent of the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern, said yesterday that while an average of ten cars of shingles were shipped daily, he felt sure that in less than a year the daily shipment would reach the proportions of yesterday’s train load.
“The train was made up at Ballard and that place had the appearance of a metropolitan railroad center.”
This 1892 report captures the moment Ballard transformed from a frontier mill town into an industrial powerhouse. Today, the train tracks have been replaced by the Burke-Gilman Trail, and the mills have given way to high-end apartments and breweries, marking the city's ongoing shift from an industrial economy to a service-based one.
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