The Vanishing Mill: How Chicago Capital Was Driven Out of Vancouver by a City’s Defiant Stand

Capt. J. O'Brien, a pioneer coal and lumber merchant of Vancouver, B.C., who is guest at the Stevens Hotel, has a most interesting story to tell of the disastrous political consequences following Terrance Ludgate's attempt to put an immense saw mill on Adams Island, just inside the harbor.

The story is of interest to Seattle people in view of the fact that Mr. Ludgate, who is acting for Chicago millionaires, has given Vancouver the go-by and will locate his mammoth industry in this city.

Mr. Ludgate, according to Capt. O'Brien, obtained a 15-year lease of the island at Vancouver for saw mill purposes from the Dominion government. Armed with this he went to the Terminal City with the intention of at once commencing building operations. A wild outcry was raised by the city council against the establishment of a mill on what they claimed was an important naval reserve. The masses favored Mr. Ludgate's scheme, but the swell compost, chiefly of English remittance men and retired army officers, backed up the council who opposed it.

Mr. Ludgate made several attempts to get possession of the island, but was driven off by the city police. While the matter was in very complicated shape, the government of British Columbia also put in a claim for the island, and asked the Dominion government to keep it over to Mr. Ludgate. "Fighting Joe" Martin, the attorney general, and the men that framed the obnoxious alien naturalization law, was at this time far for the Chicago men. He threw over his clients when the province put in its claim.

Matters reached climax when Mr. Ludgate, with a large force of men, sailed to the island and cut down nearly all the trees on it while the citizens slept. The city and provincial police then, after a struggle, arrested Ludgate and drove his men off the island.

The interesting part of the story now comes. Finance Minister Cotton, who was rival of "Fighting Joe" Martin for the premiership, bitterly opposed Mr. Ludgate, and a split in the recent provincial government ranks occurred. Mr. Ludgate took the matter into the courts, and decided to come to Seattle to build his mill, although he has not given up his lease at Adams Island.

In the meantime, Mr. Martin's party, which is in power, split itself on account of the mill scheme, and will, it is said, never be united again. It has angered itself with the Dominion government, and will have to stand a bill for thousands of dollars against brought by the Chicago capital.

The citizens of Vancouver are wildly indignant that Mr. Ludgate and his immense industry have been sent as an insult to Seattle by the pig-headed self-styled class of small minds of the region. Mr. Ludgate is still in St. Louis completing financial arrangements for the branch of a site here from the Great Northern railway.

Capt. O'Brien, who has been one of his most intimate friends at Vancouver, is understood to have come to Seattle to assist in the civilizing of the mill here. He says that the city aldermen and city mayors that opposed Mr. Ludgate will all meet defeat at the polls next year, and that driving out of Vancouver of the mill man has "busted" the provincial government and caused loss of thousands of dollars to the city and province.

Mr. Ludgate proposes to employ about 1,000 men in connection with his Seattle industry.