Life and Labor at the Head of the Canal
A traveling correspondent recounts a journey to the logging camps above Seattle, describing a rugged frontier economy fueled by timber, oxen, and the 'wonder' of industrial growth.
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 Post-Intelligencer correspondent spent a week among the logging camps along Hood’s Canal, going by way of Union City or Skokomish. At the head of the canal, the steamer 'Josephine' makes a regular trip from Seattle to Union City, carrying the mail and extending up some 50 miles. The country on either side, as far as seen, appears to be one vast forest of timber, massive in its magnitude. Though loggers have been felling the timber for twenty years, there seems yet scarcely an impression made. Across the river from the reservation, Thomas Webb, who came to the country in 1858, has one of the finest farms in the territory. His hay crop this year is 375 tons, which he sells on the spot at $11 a ton. In Union City, John Lathamy owns most everything. They, with Mr. Mallardy and several others, have in that vicinity several logging camps, in which many men are employed. The camp is somewhat of a curiosity, generally rough enough in outward appearance and speech, but with a kind heart and rotrot-ways. The camp consists of about ten yokes of oxen and ten men, each having his special duty. The logs are boomed and towed to the mill companies at the sound.
“Though loggers have been felling the timber for twenty years, there seems yet scarcely an impression made.”
This 1885 account provides a snapshot of a booming timber economy that defined early Washington statehood, long before the 'tech-gold rush' of modern Seattle. The rapid transition from dense wilderness to industrial logging camps mirrors the rapid urban development currently seen in the Pacific Northwest, reminding us that the region's prosperity has always been tethered to the extraction and transformation of its natural landscape.
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