The Cedar Shingle Bottleneck
A transportation crisis hits the Pacific Northwest as railroads fail to provide enough empty cars to meet the soaring Eastern demand for Washington timber products.
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.
It is evident that the makers and shippers of the North Pacific coast are seriously handicapped for lack of cars in which to ship their product. The trouble is that the railway managers do not want to take empty cars from Mississippi valley points all the way to the Coast for the sake of loading them back with shingles. Such is the stress for empty cars and the pressure to ship shingles that T. R. Fleming, of Ballard, Wash., is reported to have asked Manager Shelby, of the Great Northern, if he would furnish his concern cars, even if they had to be hauled to the Coast empty, if he could be guaranteed 10 cents additional to the regular freight rate. The Great Northern and the Northern Pacific rates were lately lowered on west-bound traffic with the view of inducing shipments by those lines in sufficient volume to determine a large number of cars to Coast points, so that there would be a plentiful supply for the east-bound shingle trade. It is a remarkable instance of the growth of the Coast shingle trade in one year that the question is not now one of rates, but of the ability of the roads to carry product to market.
“It is a remarkable instance of the growth of the Coast shingle trade in one year that the question is not now one of rates, but of the ability of the roads to carry product to market.”
In 1893, Ballard was the 'Shingle Capital of the World,' facing a massive infrastructure failure that threatened its primary industry. Today, Seattle’s infrastructure struggles revolve around transit capacity for people, yet the core tension—whether the city’s economic engine can keep pace with its physical transport capacity—remains the defining local anxiety.
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