Fairhaven's Booster Gospel: A Correspondent Says Come With Money, Not Without
A Chicago Record writer tours the Sound and pronounces the coast counties blessed—while conceding the sawmills have gone dark and the camps emptied.
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.
Fairhaven, Jan. 8.—Special.—William B. Curtis, the Washington City correspondent of the Chicago Record, who spent several weeks on the coast last summer, has a very interesting article on the Sound country in general and Fairhaven in particular in the Record of December 31. He takes a very hopeful view of the future, and while he cautions poor men that it is no time to come here now, he expresses the opinion that no section of the United States offers better opportunities for young men with money. Among other good things, he says: "In resources, in climate, in social and educational facilities, in economy of living and all the other conditions that are required by people who want to enjoy life as well as to make money, the coast counties of Washington are peculiarly blessed. For mining, lumbering and manufacturing of all kinds the coast counties of Washington are unsurpassed. They have coal, iron, sandstone, limestone and the precious metals within a few miles, as well as a sufficient amount of farming and fruit lands to supply all possible demands of their future population. East of the Puget Sound, along the Cascade range of mountains, is the largest and finest forest of timber in the world, and it is within a few miles of tide water at Fairhaven and other ports."
He notes that the coal lands cover 1,000,000 acres, that the coke is unsurpassed, and that there is plenty of iron ore along the coast. Referring to the depressed condition of the lumber industry and the coal trade, he says: "The removal of the duty on lumber caused the logging camps to be abandoned and the five great saw mills to shut down, because, paying wages from $2.50 to $3.50 a day, they could not compete with the Canadian mills that paid their Chinese workmen only 60 and 75 cents. For the same reason the coal suffered in a similar manner, and a great many people were thrown out of employment. But these conditions are only temporary. People have got to have lumber and coal, and there must be a readjustment of wages and prices, for these huge interests cannot be idle, and the activity and prosperity of that section of the country will soon be resumed."
“People have got to have lumber and coal, and there must be a readjustment of wages and prices, for these huge interests cannot be idle.”
Fairhaven is a neighborhood of Bellingham now, but the pitch is instantly recognizable: a place selling itself to outsiders with capital, promising that hard times are temporary and the boom just around the corner. Even the wage argument—local mills versus cheaper labor abroad—could be lifted straight from a modern trade debate.
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