The Ironworker of Snohomish
How a local blacksmith hammered out a living for the logging camps of the frontier.
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.
Wm. H. Ward, Blacksmith, Snohomish City, Wash. Ter. I am ready to do all kinds of logging and farm work. Snohomish work well done. Neatness and dispatch. In the upper town. Come and see my work. Farmers will bear in mind that in order to get one of the improved horse hay forks they must leave their orders in time. All tools used in logging camps made to order, and as cheap as can be got on the Sound.
“All tools used in logging camps made to order, and as cheap as can be got on the Sound.”
Long before the tech industry and housing booms, Snohomish’s economy was forged in the heat of a blacksmith's shop. Wm. H. Ward’s promise to outfit the 'logging camps' underscores a time when our town’s prosperity was tethered directly to the raw, physical extraction of the surrounding timber, a precursor to today's debates over land use and rural identity.
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