The Mammoth Toothpicks of Puget Sound
A historic ship is forced to undergo a drastic modification just to accommodate the massive timbers being exported from the Pacific Northwest.
The ship William A. Campbell was towed to sea last week from New Whatcom. She carried a cargo of 1,260,000 feet of clear timber for the United Kingdom. It is expected that it will be a great surprise to the Britons when the ship unloads the mammoth timbers, many of which are over one hundred feet in length without a knot or blemish. The vessel is 25 years old and has loaded lumber in the principal ports of the world, but never before found timbers too large to go in her port-holes. Many of the sticks were longer than the vessel itself and had to be sawed off to admit of being loaded. One large timber, labeled 'Jumbo,' measured two feet square and 100 feet long. The port-holes had to be enlarged near the commencement of the loading to permit the introduction of the large timbers.
“Many of the sticks were longer than the vessel itself and had to be sawed off to admit of being loaded.”
This story highlights the immense scale of the timber industry that once defined the Pacific Northwest's economy. While the old-growth forests that produced such 'Jumbo' timbers are largely gone, the region's environmental and economic debate over forest management remains a central, contested theme in local politics today.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.