The City That Stopped Cutting: Why Seattle's Mills Shut Down
When an oversupply of lumber and a city-wide shift toward brick construction forced the city's mills into an unexpected, collective silence.
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.
The lumber market continues quiet, the putting down of the price of rough lumber having failed to revive matters to any great extent. The majority of the buildings being put up now are of brick, and this accounts for the decreased demand for lumber. The reduction, however, had one effect, and that was keeping to a certain extent the rough lumber cut by the outside mills out of this market. All the mills closed down Thursday; the Oregon Improvement Company's mill has been closed down for repairs for several days, the two Lake Union mills have been shut down temporarily, and the Commercial mill has ceased running nights. All this has had the effect of bringing the cut down to about 1,150,000 feet. The outside mills chipped in 300,000 feet. Logs are dull, though prices hold out very well. Offerings are numerous, there being plenty of logs in the water. Camps are down about opening up, though river logging is going ahead.
“The majority of the buildings being put up now are of brick, and this accounts for the decreased demand for lumber.”
In the late 1880s, Seattle was transitioning from a boomtown of wood-frame shacks to a more permanent city of brick, mirroring today's transition as Seattle faces modern debates over material sustainability, housing density, and the boom-bust cycles of its foundational industries.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.