The Lumber Bottleneck
High freight rates and logistical hurdles leave Pacific Northwest lumber barons desperate for new markets.
The Mississippi Valley Lumberman recently weighed in on the struggles of the Pacific Coast lumber trade. A minor reduction in rail charges from Washington and Oregon into Iowa, Nebraska, and Illinois has failed to ignite the market. Western manufacturers are looking eastward, but the heavy, green nature of Oregon fir makes shipping prohibitively expensive—weighing over 3,000 pounds per unit, rail costs often hit $10 per thousand board feet. Even optimistic rail rate reductions won't solve the issue, as Pacific lumber must then compete with cheaper Southern yellow pine. While the proposed Nicaragua Canal is touted as a solution, analysts remain skeptical, noting that high towing costs and potential tolls may make the long voyage around the Horn more economical. Ultimately, the industry must look to foreign markets and the slow development of local demand to survive this era of over-production.
“The great dumping ground of the Pacific coast lumbermen must be in the future, as it has been in the past, the foreign fields.”
This 1892 report highlights the perennial tension in the Pacific Northwest economy: reliance on raw resource extraction while being geographically isolated from major population centers. The 'lumber problem' mirrors the modern regional struggle to balance resource-based industry with the realities of globalized shipping and market volatility.
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