Timber and Ore: Why Washington's Two Great Industries Must Rise Together

In a country where the natural resources are so extensive as they are in Washington, one interest can not grow without aiding the other in direct or indirect manner. The interests are diversified in this state, and they cover a wide scope. That Washington embraces within its limits immense forests of fir, cedar, spruce and hemlock is a fact well known to everyone on this Coast, and it was impressed on the minds of others by the object lesson given at the World's Fair. It is known that one of the greatest industries of the state is the manufacture of lumber, but by reason of general depression, these industries have been stagnant, and the results have been very unsatisfactory. With brisk demand and good market, the Sound country and the entire state feels the stimulating effect. A live lumber market to this country means flush times and plenty of money. It has been so in the past, it will be so in the future, and the lumber interest can be materially augmented by the encouragement of other industries that have been kept in the background through lack of capital and lack of interest to a large extent. In Washington, by examination of the new maps issued by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railroads, the mineral area will be found as great as that of the timber, and it embraces nearly all the known and useful metals. Explorations have been carried on to a limited extent in different sections and districts which have demonstrated that the minerals are here in paying quantities, and capital has been solicited to develop them, but it has responded slowly, and as a result the mining interest has not grown as rapidly as the merits of the mines justify. The two great interests, mining and lumbering, naturally go together. This is demonstrated in Michigan, in Virginia, in Pennsylvania, in California. A number of the largest orders for lumber received on Puget Sound during the dullest season known to the lumber trade came from South Africa, to be used mainly in the mines. In the mining operations carried on at Virginia City on the Comstock, a large number of saw mills were required to get out the timber used in the underground workings of the mines, and the timber that covered 10,000 acres was consumed in supplying the demand. There was more lumber required in sustaining the ground beneath than there was in constructing the city above. In Butte, Montana, it is the same — one mine alone, Anaconda, consumes upwards of 1,000,000 feet of lumber. Thus it is seen the industries of the state go hand in hand, the one contributing to the benefit of the other, and in the end every interest is benefited.