Why Is There No Sawmill on Port Townsend Bay?
With foreign lumber ships crowding the harbor and the mills all seventy miles up the Sound, the Argus does the arithmetic on what the town is throwing away.
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.
In consequence of the numerous inquiries reaching us from time to time in regard to the advantages possessed by Port Townsend Bay for the purpose of the manufacture of lumber, it seems proper at this time to refer to it. Charterers of foreign ships, which are constantly arriving in our harbor seeking cargoes of lumber for foreign ports, and not in any way connected with the mills up the Sound, among others often ask the question, Why is there no mill on Port Townsend Bay, it is such a fine harbor, so easy of access, and where we all have to come?
This question is sometimes answered by interested parties up-Sound as follows: "There is no timber in the vicinity of Port Townsend and it is unsafe to tow logs down there." This, however, is not the case, as the mills seventy miles above here are frequently towing logs from below here to their mills, only stopping in our bay for shelter while the tide turns to suit their purpose. They say the timber they get from below here is better and will pay for the extra towing. Now, this timber is taken from here seventy miles up the Sound (which is much harder than it would be to take it the other way, as the ebb tide runs much stronger than the flood on account of the many fresh water rivers that are constantly flowing in above). Then the ships have to be towed up to the mill and back over the same ground, making a run of seventy miles each way besides the detention of the ships — all of which we have the advantage of on this bay.
A few figures will show what these advantages are in dollars and cents. The towing of the logs and ships up and the lumber back cannot be estimated at less than one dollar per thousand. If the mill cuts 50,000 feet per day the saving in one year, reckoning 300 running days, would be $15,000 — a fortune in a few years, enough to pay for the whole outlay in building the mill.
“Why is there no mill on Port Townsend Bay, it is such a fine harbor, so easy of access, and where we all have to come?”
In 1877 Port Townsend was the customs port of entry for Puget Sound, and every foreign lumber ship called here — yet the sawmills were all up the Sound. The Argus's arithmetic, that $15,000 a year in towing savings would pay for a mill outright, is the same case small towns still make when the employer they court keeps choosing the bigger city next door.
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