No Cars, No Shingles: Washington's Mills Faced a Statewide Shutdown
With floods and a strike choking the transcontinental lines, shingle men warned that every mill in Washington would close within two weeks.
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.
TACOMA, June 20.—[Special.]—Shinglemen say that unless some of the transcontinental roads are open for traffic within two weeks every shingle mill in the state will be shut down. No shingles have left Washington since the flood blockaded the roads. Mill stocks are accumulating at the mills with scarcely any outlet. It is reported here that all the shingle mills along the Great Northern line have already been shut down. That road has furnished very few cars since the strike and none since the flood. Shinglemen think that the Northern Pacific will be the first to give them relief. At present none of the roads—the Northern Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Great Northern and Union Pacific—are giving any cars for shingles. At Superintendent Dickinson's office it was reported that no more Northern Pacific cars would be given to the mills until the line is open for freight. This will probably be three or four days. The shingle cars which have been loaded at the Sound have been forwarded to Spokane and Yakima.
“Unless some of the transcontinental roads are open for traffic within two weeks every shingle mill in the state will be shut down.”
A century before 'supply chain crisis' became a phrase, Washington's shingle mills were idled by a rail blockade—flood damage and a strike upstream of the cars they needed. The story is a reminder of how quickly a resource economy can stop when transportation fails.
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