A $3 Million Sawmill Goes Corporate on Puget Sound
Port Blakely’s mill owners incorporated in California, putting a $3 million lumber empire under a manager who would run it from the Washington Territory shore.
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.
Certificates of articles of incorporation were filed in the office of the Secretary of the Territory on Saturday last for the organization of the Port Blakely Mill Company. The company is composed of the old firm of Renton, Holmes & Co., and is now incorporated, existing and organized under and by virtue of the laws of California. Capt. Wm. Renton, the senior partner of the old firm, is constituted and appointed manager and agent of the corporation in this Territory, to reside at Port Blakely. The capital stock is $3,000,000, paid up. C. E. Holmes, of San Francisco, is president, and R. L. Taylor of the same place is secretary.
Corporations are becoming popular on this coast, where an extensive business is carried on requiring a concentration of means. The utility of corporations is unquestioned; a corporation has many advantages for doing an extensive business. Besides, its existence is prolonged beyond the term of natural life, and the death of any member does not, therefore, affect materially the specific purpose for which it was formed or the conduct of the business engaged in. While it is said that corporations have neither souls to be saved nor bodies to be damned, it is a satisfaction to know they never die, but exist until dissolved by the expiration of the term fixed by charter or general law, with power within themselves of prolonged existence. Hereafter the business of Renton, Holmes & Co. will be conducted under the corporate name of the Port Blakely Mill Company.
“Corporations are becoming popular on this coast, where an extensive business is carried on requiring a concentration of means.”
Port Blakely’s mill became one of the largest lumber operations on Puget Sound, its waterfront and company town now buried under Bainbridge Island suburbia. The 1876 filing shows how early outside capital and California corporate law shaped who controlled Washington’s timber — a fight over resource wealth that still echoes in debates over timberlands, shorelines and who profits from them.
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