Timber spurred the Puget Sound's economy in the very earliest days of its development. Demands for building materials in California, as well as an international demand for lumber that was suitable for ship masts, fed Washington's early economy. Timber products continued to be the primary economic engine in the Puget Sound region through the middle of the 20th century.

In the Beginning

The first settlements in Western Washington were trading and federal government outposts in Vancouver and near Olympia, established in the late 1820s. In subsequent decades, however, settlers arriving from the East, Midwest and from places such as Oregon and California founded agricultural and timber-based communities throughout the Puget Sound region.

Many of the earliest towns were collections of agricultural homesteads, but following the rapid growth of San Francisco in the 1850s, the demand for timber rose sharply. The combination of deep-water moorage and valuable timber stands that grew to the tide line made the Seattle area an ideal region for export logging.

Henry Yesler founded the first steam-powered sawmill in the region in 1853, ensuring Seattle's status as an early commercial and industrial center.

By the 1860s there were several similar mills throughout the region including town sites at Port Ludlow and Port Hadlock on the Quimper Peninsula, Port Gamble and Port Madison on the Kitsap Peninsula, Port Blakely on Bainbridge Island, and Port Discovery on the Olympic Peninsula; Utsalady, near Stanwood; the Tacoma Mill; the Ballard Mills; and Grays Harbor Commercial Company Mill and the Hoquiam Mill, both near Aberdeen.

San Francisco-based companies owned many of these operations.

Company Towns

Logging settlements were often located immediately adjacent to the shores of Puget Sound or on lakes, where loggers could fell trees directly into the saltwater sound for transport. Water transport was sometimes difficult and risky, especially during seasonal storms on the open Sound. Over time, mill operations were more often than not located in protected harbors or had access to railroad spurs nearby. By the late 1890s, many early operations were abandoned or suspended when local timber stands were depleted and transport was too arduous.

In a survey of Washington lumber mills in 1899, one author noted that a certain camp town near Port Townsend was equipped with "planers, a machine shop, store, dwelling houses, hotel, warehouses, and a cookhouse, as usual." In some cases for larger operations, like those in Seattle, individual workers and business people owned their own property on the town site. While the company often built a relatively substantial structure for the superintendent, worker houses were often small, wood frame structures.

Because many sawmills were in remote areas and required significant amounts of labor and infrastructure, lumber companies often built at least one store, a cookhouse, as well as warehouses and docks. For larger operations, there could be a hotel, a post office and telegraph, an electric plant for later mills, and other amenities. Evidence of the Puget Sound's older timber towns still exist with their 19th century main streets visually intact, including boomtown commercial buildings with false fronts.

Growth of an Industry

Washington's timber industry grew dramatically in the last decades of the 19th century, as the lumber industry in the Midwest declined and the Transcontinental Railroad expanded national connections. Lower trade tariffs and the completed Panama Canal further expanded Washington's lumber economy, and by the turn of the century, the local timber industry shifted from selling primarily to the west coast market to selling to the national market and beyond.

Washington lumber was also exported internationally to England, Australia, Asia and South and Central America. This growing economy fueled building booms, which caused occasional material shortages -- in 1883 the entire output of local mills was consumed within the Puget Sound region. As the logging industry grew, it expanded into the timber stands in the foothills around Puget Sound. With the advent of narrow gauge rail, logging communities proliferated throughout the region as tracks, roads were laid in the forests. As intensive logging depleted forested areas, the logging companies moved the camps and small towns to new locations, taking with them their equipment and often leaving little obvious trace of the former activities.

Douglas fir, spruce and cedar were all considered high quality export building materials, but hemlock was considered soft and splintery and thus of lower quality. As a result, many of the early logging camp and industrial buildings, temporary structures, and skid roads were made of hemlock. Value-added timber industries, such as the manufacturing of shingles, sashes, doors and other building elements, began in 1875 with the establishment of the Stetson and Post Mill on Yesler's Wharf, and soon became a substantial industrial sector in Seattle.

By 1889, there were 37 mill operations producing wood building products listed in the Seattle Polk Directory, including lumber manufacturers, planning mills, shingle mills, and sash, doors, and blinds manufacturers. A decade later this number had grown to 60. By 1905, Washington State was the nation's leading producer of lumber.

In the Seattle Polk Directory for 1909 there were over 243 lumber related listings, including 163 lumber mills and 54 shingle mills. The trend continued for several more decades; in the 1930s over 80,000 people worked in logging camps and the local lumber industry was valued at over $200 million. Over half of Washington's production output by this time was based on timber, and Washington was the leading national producer of several categories of forest products.

Some of Seattle's early neighborhood centers, some of which were originally independent town sites, were first established by mill operations. Examples include Columbia City, Mount Baker, Laurelhurst, and Ballard.

Much of Ballard's industrial waterfront (currently home to Seattle's marine services industry) was originally occupied by shingle mills. Ballard self-identified as "The Shingle Capitol of the World" during the heyday of the industry.

Some of these mill buildings have been adapted to new uses, but remain as reminders of this industrial past.

Wood in Local Construction

As the Puget Sound's population grew, and shipping to and from the region became common, settlers began employing more sophisticated building techniques made possible as milled lumber became available. Residential construction began to shift "from log cabins to houses of sawed lumber." By the latter half of the 19th century, milled lumber used in local construction was almost exclusively from local sources.

The earliest milled lumber houses used plank construction. These houses were usually constructed with a perimeter of planks set vertically on a sill and attached to a plate overhead. Often, walls were then clad on the exterior with horizontal drop siding or vertical board and batten siding.

Balloon framing, using a light frame of milled studs covered by horizontal lathe, soon supplanted plank construction as manufactured materials and lumber became increasingly available. Balloon framing allowed increased flexibility for floor plans, window placement and massing.

Most buildings constructed in Seattle prior to the end of the 19th century were wood frame, including commercial, residential, industrial and institutional structures. During the late Victorian period elaborate wood ornamentation, such as bracketing, scrolls and shingles, was extremely popular. As the speculative real estate market in Seattle grew during the 1880s, however, architecture's role as a public statement became increasingly important.

The desire to create a more permanent civic image, and to encourage investment resulted in more stone and brick being used for major institutional and commercial buildings. Wood was still commonly used for smaller or lower profile commercial buildings, lesser institutional buildings, and residential structures.

Unlike more permanent materials such as stone and brick, the Northwest's climate is not a longtime friend of wood. Wood was a primary building material for the Puget Sounds first human inhabitants -- almost no part of that built heritage remains, due to the deterioration of the wood fibers. This factor makes preservation of extant, older wooden structure, like the Wayne Apartments, expecially important.

Seattle's public institutions, such as its schools, were variously built of masonry or lumber, generally depending on their location and budget. Seattle School District vacillated between using wood or masonry, as did the new fire department.

Fire was a constant concern. Prior to the early 20th century, buildings were often destroyed by fire before anyone could consider their demolition for redevelopment. Following the Great Fire in July of 1889, which destroyed around 200 acres of Seattle's commercial center, wood was banned as a construction material within the downtown core.

Wood continued as the primary building material in many of Seattle's suburban neighborhoods, especially for residential buildings. It was the most readily available material in Seattle, cheaper than other materials such as brick and stone, and, aside from foundations, was suitable for most uses.

Sources

Bagley, Clarence. History of Seattle from the earliest settlement to present time. Chicago: SJ Clarke Publishing Company, 1916.

Brockett, Norman K. Lumberman's Review and Guide to Western Washington. Seattle: Lumberman's Review Co., n.d. (ca. 1900).

Bucher, Ward. Dictionary of Building Preservation. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1996.

Nyberg, Folke and Victor Steinbrueck. An inventory of buildings and urban design resources. Seattle: Historic Seattle Preservation Development Authority, 1975.

Ochsner, Jeffrey K. and Dennis A. Andersen. Distant Corner: Seattle Architects and the Legacy of H.H. Richardson. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003.

RL Polk Directories for Seattle: Various years.

Schmid, Calvin E. Social Trends in Seattle. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1944.

Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. Built in Washington. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1989.

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