A Mill That Never Sleeps: Dalkena Runs Day and Night
Newport's Dalkena Lumber Co. keeps roughly 100 men working around the clock, outfits its yards with electric light, and readies a new gasoline tug for the river.
The mill of the Dalkena Lumber Co. is now working a day and night shift, and the planing mill is getting out from three to five carloads of lumber daily. The yards are being planked and a new electric lighting system has been installed in the yards. In the neighborhood of 100 men are now employed by the company. The new tug boat being built by the company, by E. W. Stevens, the Newport boat builder, is nearing completion and will soon be ready for launching. The boat will be equipped with a 45 horsepower gasoline engine and will be used for handling logs on the river.
“The mill of the Dalkena Lumber Co. is now working a day and night shift... In the neighborhood of 100 men are now employed by the company.”
In 1910 the Pend Oreille country ran on timber, and a mill hiring a hundred men on two shifts was the economic heartbeat of the district. A century later the same rural counties still argue over timber jobs, mill closures and whether a resource economy can sustain a town. The tug under construction here is a reminder that these river towns built their own boats as readily as they built their houses.
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