The Shingle War: Seattle Dealers Challenge Manufacturers
A new association of Pacific Northwest dealers forms to fight for control over the marketing of cedar shingles against the manufacturing cartels.
A number of Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland shingle dealers have organized the Pacific Shingle Shippers' Association, consisting exclusively of dealers. The essence of the move is that dealers are the ones capable of marketing the shingles of the country. This is a continuation of the war declared by manufacturers who attempted to bypass dealers by sending their goods directly to the East. The dealers fear that if the manufacturers succeed in selling directly to the retailer, the independent broker will be squeezed out. By cutting prices on star A star grades and clears, the new association hopes to force the manufacturing cartels to the wall. Meanwhile, the 'outside' dealers have begun reviving 'dead' mills to bypass boycotts, claiming they now control the market through these resurrected operations.
“The outside dealers claim the manufacturers utterly failed to prevent them from securing all the shingles they wanted.”
This 1894 battle for control of the regional timber supply chain reflects the persistent tension between Seattle’s independent brokers and the large-scale industrial owners that has defined the region's economy for over a century. Today’s supply chain disruptions and platform-based market control battles are merely the modern descendants of these original shingle wars.
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