Two Million Shingles and a Mill Go Up in Smoke
A fire that started in a waste pile destroyed Philo Rutherford's shingle mill on Tokul Creek—and an uninsured season's work with it.
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.
Snoqualmie, July 31.—[Special.]—The shingle mill on Tokul Creek, two miles north of town, was destroyed by fire last evening a little after 9 o'clock, together with 2,000,000 shingles. The fire caught from the waste pile, no one at the time being about the mill.
The mill was the property of Philo Rutherford, on which he had no insurance. The shingles belonged to J. H. Hart, of this place, and had $1,000 insurance, another $1,000 policy having lapsed only a few days before.
The mill had done quite a business, but had not been running for several weeks until a few days ago, when it was started up to cut a car load of shingles on a special order. A ferry had recently been constructed across the Snoqualmie to cut off half the distance in hauling the shingles to the railroad. This is another blow to the industries of this region.
“This is another blow to the industries of this region.”
Tokul Creek is still a timbered corridor above Snoqualmie, but the small mills that once turned logs into shingles are mostly gone. The story is a reminder of how thin the margin was in a one-industry town—and how a lapsed insurance policy could erase a season's work.
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