A South Bend Mill Assigned Itself to Creditors, Then Burned to the Ground That Night
The Willapa Cedar Lumber Company signed its assets over to creditors at 4:55 p.m. By 11 that nightthe shingle mill and dry house were in flames, five car loads of shingles lost and $12,000 gone up in smoke.
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 Willapa Cedar Lumber Company, of South Bend, whose mills were burned the night of September 19, at 4:55 o'clock that afternoon filed for record in the county auditor's office an assignment for the benefit of its creditors. The liabilities are $16,000, distributed among a score of creditors, including the National Bank, A. S. Harwell, F. N. Fuller, the Northwestern Lumber Company, and outstanding labor for June, July and August amounting to $3,174.
Among the assets of the company are a claim against Taylor Bros., of Seattle; an interest in a large gas engine and fittings, and in the timber on the southwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section 28, township 13 north, range 11 west, Pacific county; lots in block 3 and lots 21 to 25 in block 3, Third addition to South Bend; logs in South Bend, and claims against the American Central Insurance Company, of St. Louis, and the Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance, of London, for previous losses by fire.
In the fire at South Bend September 19 the shingle mill and large dry house of the company were burned to the ground. In the latter were five car loads of shingles, which were also destroyed. Fire was discovered at 11 o'clock p.m., in the rafters of the mill, over the boiler, and almost simultaneously the dry house, 100 yards away, caught, and a blazing ball of oil in kerosene was found inside. The capacity of the mill was 15,000 daily. The loss is estimated at $12,000.
“Fire was discovered at 11 o'clock p.m., in the rafters of the mill, over the boiler.”
A single-industry timber town watching its mill pass to creditors by afternoon and burn by midnight is the boom-and-bust cycle in miniature. South Bend and the Willapa mills rose and collapsed on exactly this rhythm, and the thin line between a going concern and a pile of ash still defines rural Washington's resource economy.
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