Eleven Carloads of Cedar Poles Roll Out of Newport in a Single Day
220 tons of poles bound for Ohio and points east — the biggest day's shipment ever to leave the station — as Newport cements its claim as the cedar pole capital of the region.
Monday afternoon the Idaho Washington Northern Railroad pulled out of Newport a trainload of eleven cars of poles, including three triple loads, the largest day's shipment that has gone out of this station.
Eight of the loads were forwarded by W. G. Chaney of Spokane, the other three by K. McKenzie, representative of the Western Pole Lumber Co. All were destined for points east of the Mississippi river, some going as far as Ohio.
The net weight of the poles in this trainload was 220 tons, and the freight to their destination amounts to $2,127.26, an average rate of about 50 cents per hundred.
Cedar pole shipments are heavier this spring than they have been at any time during the past three years. The yards at Newport are rapidly being depleted, but will during the summer receive a large quantity of poles. About 20,000 will be brought down from up-river points and a number of barge loads are to be brought from down the river. Newport will continue to be the cedar pole center for this section.
After the train was made up in the yards Photographer Palmer of Spokane took a picture of the scene.
“Newport will continue to be the cedar pole center for this section.”
Newport's economy once rode on cedar poles cut from the Pend Oreille country and railed east to light the nation's telegraph and telephone lines. The timber economy that built these towns has largely vanished, leaving the same rail corridors and a landscape still arguing over what its forests are for.
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