The Secret Lumber Pool
A clandestine plan to monopolize Pacific Coast timber shipments emerges from the shadows.
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.
One of the largest deals in the history of the world's lumber trade is now in process of incubation in San Francisco. It is a scheme to form a pool to control the water shipments of lumber of the entire Pacific coast from Lower California to Alaska. The matter has been under way for some time, and it has been kept a profound secret. A representative of the Puget Sound Lumberman learned of the scheme through a Tacoma mill man operating on the water front near the bridge over Galagher's gulch. The scheme is to form a combination of all the big cargo mills on the coast, at Grays Harbor, on Puget Sound, and in British Columbia to control shipments to foreign and coastwise points. The plan is to subsidize over 100 small mills on the coast, paying them between $400 and $1,000 per year to stay out of the water-shipping trade, ensuring the 'combine' holds total control.
“This may not seem very great to the outsider, but the lumbermen know well the immensity of such a move.”
This 1892 report highlights the immense economic power the timber industry held over the Pacific Northwest. Today, corporate consolidation remains a central tension in the region, mirroring the era when mill owners attempted to fix prices and crush smaller competition through predatory subsidies.
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