The Mill Town Schoolhouse Scandal
When the town’s dominant lumber company controlled the land, the children and the schoolhouse were left to fend for themselves.
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.
As the business of this town is increasing, the population is increasing, and the number of married men is increasing—consequently there is a very large increase of school children. But the old school house, which was built by Marshall Blinn some years ago, has not increased a bit, and is not large enough today to accommodate more than one-third of the scholars in this district. Guess there must be a scarcity of lumber, as the mill company have been shipping large quantities to a foreign market of late, using the surplus for building dwelling houses for their employees. And another thing—neither the owners nor their agent here have any children going to school in this district; so it doesn't matter much whether there is any school house or not. What do they care whether there is a good school or not? The boys will be able to handle just as much lumber for them when they are a few years older as they would if they received ever so good an education; and another thing, an ignorant, uneducated person can be handled to better advantage where there is nothing but muscle required. However, there was a school meeting called last evening for the purpose of discussing the propriety of turning out one-half of the scholars for two months and taking in the other half. Things got so hot that one of the directors tendered his resignation in a very informal manner by putting on his hat and leaving the hall, telling the whole meeting to go to h——l. A question arose as to the propriety of building a school house on land which does not belong to the school district. The question was soon quashed, however, by the Mill company’s agent informing the meeting that they were not expected to have any interests in this town that the Mill company were not directly interested in.
“What do they care whether there is a good school or not?—the boys will be able to handle just as much lumber for them when they are a few years older.”
This 1877 account from 'Sunbeck' (near modern-day Shelton, Washington) echoes the historic tension between extraction-based economies and public infrastructure. Much like current debates over developer impact fees and corporate tax obligations, this report highlights how communities struggle to secure basic public goods when the primary employer holds total sway over the land and economy.
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