The Company Town That Built Itself: Inside Port Gamble's Lumber Empire
In 1876, the Puget Mill Company turned a remote bay into a model industrial community, complete with its own fleet, brass band, and company-owned housing.
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.
Pleasantly situated on Teekalet Bay, near the mouth of Hood's Canal, lies the great lumbering town of Port Gamble, owned by the Puget Mill Company, successors to Pope & Talbot. The gentlemen just named are among the kind of business men who are calculated to build up any community among which they may locate. Bred to the business of lumbering in the old 'Pine Tree State,' they came to California in an early day and were content to plod along and stick close to their own business, avoiding the mad spirit of speculation which has since swamped so many who then bid fair to outstrip them.
Several years ago, finding that new avenues of wealth were closed to them only for want of capital, they resolved upon enlarging their business by incorporation and organized the Puget Mill Company, with W. C. Talbot as President, and Cyrus Walker as Superintendent of the works. Probably there are other men on this coast who are as practical lumbermen as Mr. Walker, but not one man in ten thousand has his executive ability.
The old mill is situated nearest the wharf, and has a capacity of about 110,000 feet per day. It contains four engines, driven by seven boilers, all of which were made in the company's own shop, under William Walker’s supervision. The fuel used is sawdust, while the slabs are burned to get them out of the way. In this way goes to waste what would afford warmth to five hundred families a day. About eighty men are employed in this mill.
The town of Port Gamble shows its prosperous population in more ways than one. The houses are very neat, especially that of William Walker. Port Gamble has one of a good hotel too, the Teekalet House, kept by John Collins & Co. It has a cook-house for the mill hands handsome enough for a church, and a public library. There is also a brass band of eighteen pieces under the leadership of Mr. C. W. Lowe. In word, the Puget Mill Company have done everything to provide good order and encourage good habits among their employees. The scores of neat cottages on the hillside, all owned by the company, contain an intelligent and liberal people, whose children will be richer men than their parents.
Port Gamble represents the classic 'company town' model, where a single corporation controlled not just jobs but housing, culture, and infrastructure. This mirrors modern debates about corporate power in remote resource towns and the gig economy's impact on worker autonomy, though today's workers have more mobility than the 19th-century lumbermen who lived in company-owned cottages.
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