Everson Shingle Mill Lost to Fire
A newly opened shingle mill in Whatcom County is completely destroyed by a fire that nearly spreads to the railway line.
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 shingle mill at Everson, owned by Harkness Bros. & Scott, which was burned yesterday, had only been in operation a few days. One hundred and seventy-five thousand shingles were burned in what was one of the most complete mills in Whatcom county. The loss of $3,000 falls heavily on the company, which had no insurance. The heat was so intense it set fire to a pile of shingle bolts along the Bellingham Bay & British Columbia railway, burning sixty feet of trestle and delaying the Canadian Pacific. The country is very dry, and sparks from engines are posing a constant threat to local infrastructure.
“The heat from the burning mill was so intense as to set on fire a large pile of shingle bolts... and some sixty feet of trestle was burned.”
This incident highlights the extreme vulnerability of Washington's early timber industry to fire and the precarious nature of speculative investment in the 1890s forest economy.
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