The Mill That Rose From Sunday's Ashes
Within days of a devastating fire, Whitehouse-Crimmins set 50 men to clearing debris and laid plans for a brick plant that would be running by December.
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.
The new planing mill and woodworking factory that the Whitehouse-Crimmins Company will erect on the site of the one destroyed in Sunday morning's fire will be one of the finest equipped plants in the state. The firm has decided to erect a brick structure 120 feet square and one story in height. Fifty men and 15 teams were set to work this morning clearing up the debris left by the fire and excavating for the foundation work.
Brick for the building will be secured from the state penitentiary yards, and the first installment was delivered on the grounds today. The new mill is expected to be completed and in full running order by December 1, though the firm will be able to take care of certain classes of work before that time.
Through the use of the telephone and telegraph it has been ascertained that the bulk of the new machinery required to equip the mill can be obtained from coast houses by picking from a number of stocks.
"The new mill will be equipped with nothing but the most modern machinery," Mr. Whitehouse said this morning. "We find that most of this can be secured on the coast. We expect to be in fine running order by the first of December."
“The new mill will be equipped with nothing but the most modern machinery.”
When fire gutted a local woodworking plant, the company's answer was not retreat but a bigger brick mill and a December deadline. Walla Walla's economy has always depended on that kind of rebuilding—and on the workers who clear the debris. The story reads as a reminder that disaster recovery is often a labor story as much as a business one.
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