Shingle Manufacturers Organize a Trust
1200 mill owners gather in Seattle to fix prices and stabilize the shingle market.
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 shingle manufacturers of Washington and Oregon who have signed the agreement entered the new organization at a large and harmonious meeting in the new hall of the Arlington hotel yesterday. The meeting included representatives of 1,200 of the 2,200 mills in the two states. H.R. Duniway of Portland reported he had secured the signatures of 90 percent of the firms, and the remaining balance were either doubtful or so financially embarrassed they were counted as dead for the time being. The association moved to fix prices, with some members advocating for an immediate floor price of $1.20 for certain sizes. It is expected that the manufacturers will finish their business this morning, and then the organization of a dealers' association will be completed to further control the market.
“The balance were either doubtful or were so embarrassed as to be counted as dead, at least for the time.”
In the 1890s, Seattle was the epicenter of a timber boom defined by cutthroat competition and 'trust' behavior. These manufacturers were attempting to survive the Panic of 1893 by colluding to set prices, a strategy of market dominance that remains a fundamental tension in Seattle's labor and industrial history.
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