The Logging Revolution on Skookum Chuck
Innovation in Snohomish: How timber barons traded oxen for steam-era ingenuity to keep the mills running.
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 coal mine referred to in these pages is situated by Messrs. Hill, M. E. May, Williams and Gill, McKenny and others, who have leased it for a term of twenty years. The mine will be worked by the Thurston and Company, which was organized in October. The shareholders are S. Coulter, W. Billings, F. R. Brown, Chas. Church, J. B. Davis, and Thomas Mecham. The mine is located on the banks of Skookum Chuck, about 1000 feet distant from the stream, which is about 75 feet wide. A horizontal tunnel is now in about 250 feet, running due south. The vein is nearly horizontal, and the coal is of superior quality, free from all refuse matter. In winter months, the mine could easily be opened up so that 300 tons of coal could be produced daily. It can be mined as cheaply and easily as the Newcastle coal. It burns with a very bright flame, and smells like burning resin or pitch. Some compare it with English cannel coal, as it has little streaks through it that can be lit with a match and burn like pitch-covered wood.
“The ease with which the largest and longest logs were carried proved that for transporting a distance of a mile and over, no road can equal that of one of these wooden tramways.”
This 1879 report highlights a critical moment of industrial transition in Snohomish County, where simple 'skid roads' for oxen were being replaced by private, horse-drawn tramways to access deeper timber. Today, Snohomish faces a different kind of transition, shifting from an industrial and agricultural hub to a high-demand residential corridor, mirroring the way infrastructure—then for coal and timber, now for transit and housing—defines the prosperity of the region.
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