The Infinite Forests of Washington
How Washington State’s cedar shingles and massive timber began to replace the nation's dying pine supplies in the 1890s.
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.
I saw a cedar stump the other day on which a crowd of seventy-two people stood and sat while a photograph was taken. It was so large that a cottage could have been built upon it, and the height of the tree before it was cut was 300 feet. Washington state holds vast timber resources; the cedar shingles of Puget Sound are fast driving pine shingles out of the market. Mr. Shelby, general manager of the Great Northern Railroad, states that while a pine roof must be replaced every five or six years, a cedar roof is good for forty or fifty. He predicts that within a few years, three-quarters of the nation's shingles will come from Washington. Currently, 20,000 men are employed in the wood-working industries of the state, with over $10,000,000 spent in wages annually.
“It would take a train of cars long enough to go nine times around the world to carry this lumber.”
This report captures the late 19th-century extraction frenzy that defined the Pacific Northwest economy. Today, Washington's forestry industry continues to wrestle with the ecological legacy of these 'three centuries' worth' of timber, balancing historical logging output against modern sustainability and land-use debates.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.