Black Diamonds in the Backwoods
A look back at the chaotic, accidental, and often cutthroat early days of coal mining in the Washington Territory.
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.
Rev. G. F. Whitworth wrote in 1880 that while Washington was first perceived as a mere 'lumbering region,' its future mineral wealth would be paramount. Coal discovery was often accidental—such as at Bellingham Bay in 1864, where loggers named Brown and Hewitt found coal after a tree root upturned, exposing 'black diamonds.' The race to secure mining rights was fierce; agent Calhoun Benham famously raced a rival to Bellingham Bay, making it by only a few hours to secure a purchase. Other early mines, such as those on the Black River and Coal Creek, were plagued by transportation difficulties and hostile environmental conditions. These early ventures, involving figures like Dr. K. M. Bigelow and P. H. Lewis, laid the ground for the Seattle coal industry, though many early claims were lost to history, abandonment, or the violence of the era.
“A recently upturned root of a tree, which had been compelled to yield to the blast, disclosed black diamonds.”
This account captures the frantic, wild-west atmosphere of 19th-century resource extraction in Washington. The 'race' to secure land rights and the subsequent reliance on coal rail lines built the bones of Seattle’s modern infrastructure, though many of the specific creek-side mines described have long since vanished under urban expansion.
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