Will Clallam County Strike Coal?
Prospectors are drilling in Port Angeles, hoping that sandstone discolorations signal a rich coal vein beneath the city.
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If there is any coal in the vicinity of Port Angeles, it is likely to be uncovered within the next few months. Fifteen men are now at work in the creek bottom on Lincoln Street, just outside of the city limits, and Messrs. Griswold and Hibbard, who are in charge of the work, are confident that the indications at that point are conclusive evidence that within a few hundred feet of the surface a paying vein of coal will be found. A dam seventy-five feet from bank to bank and ten feet high has been constructed in the bed of the creek, from which a water power sufficient to operate a drill will be obtained. The formation at the point at which the drill will be operated is sandstone, which is discolored by the sulphur fumes supposed to come from the coal beneath. Lewis Levy, of this city, is also anxious to open a coal mine in this vicinity. He asks the citizens of Port Angeles for a $5,000 land bonus, over half of which has already been subscribed, and in return agrees to open up a vein of coal three and a half feet wide.
“The formation at the point at which the drill will be operated is sandstone, which is discolored by the sulphur fumes supposed to come from the coal beneath.”
Early Seattle-area mining ventures were often driven by intense local speculation and the desire to secure energy independence. While coal was once the engine of the region's economy, these speculative projects frequently left communities with empty promises and heavy environmental scars, echoing the boom-and-bust cycle of modern resource extraction.
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