A Million-Dollar Timber Trust Takes Shape West of Newport
The Spokane Lumber Company and the Washington Mill Company merge into a $1,200,000 holding combine controlling more than 50,000 acres of timber land — much of it tributary to Diamond and Sacheen lakes.
The Spokane Lumber company and the Washington Mill company recently filed amended papers of incorporation in which the interests of both companies have been combined into a $1,200,000 operating and holding company. The combine gives the two companies joint control of more than 50,000 acres of timber land. The Washington Mill company will be the operating company and the Spokane Lumber company will be the timber holding company. The trustees of both companies are John Delaittre and H. M. Delaittre of Minneapolis, and J. C. Barline, W. C. Ufford and J. W. Cook of Spokane. A large part of the timber involved in this deal is tributary to Diamond and Sacheen lakes west of Newport.
“The combine gives the two companies joint control of more than 50,000 acres of timber land.”
This consolidation put tens of thousands of acres of Pend Oreille County timber under absentee Minneapolis and Spokane trustees — the pattern of outside capital owning the ground under local resource towns. The same forests around Diamond and Sacheen lakes are today the subject of modern conservation and recreation debates, with the ownership question still very much alive.
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