The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1898-02-04
Lumber Product of Washington.

!
last year lumber enough to build &c.
oO0 cottages OF average size, and
enough shingles to roof 1865 such
cottages. This means that the state
sent out enough lumber in one year
to build four times as many residen-
ces as there are in Seattle, and shing-
les enough to cover fourteen times as
many. The state of Washington ship
| ped last year to Eastern states alone
more shingles than were cut in all the
four big lumber producing states of
Michigan, Wisconsin, Min esota and
Iowa.
One firm in the little city of Ballard
which is practically part of this city,
cut as many shingles as all the sixteen
mills of Minneapolis combined, and
| Minneapolis is the lumber manufact-
uring benter of the great white pine
belt.
The cut of lumber at the Port
Blakeley mill alone for last year was
nearly 10O,00O,OOO feet, or, indeed,
more than that enormous total if laths
be included. That means lumber
enough to build 10000 one-and-a-half-
story cottages of average size. Port
Blakeley, on account of its situation
and trade relations, Is practically a
suburb of Seattle.
The magnitude and far-reachiug
significance of these figures one does
not grasp fully until one sits down and
does little thinking and a little COM
parison. In the rush and hum of the
great commercial activity connected
with the movement to the northern
gold fields, the average observer is apt
to lose sight of the fact that right here
within our own state borders is carried
on gigantic industry whose product,
steady, uniform, and marketable, far
exceeded in value the total gold out
put of the Klondike.
The force of these statistics is still
further increased by comparing them
with former years. This state shipped
last year 7,737 car loads of lumber to
Eastern markets as against 6,4S6 IN
1896. 1t shipped to the same market
II 1878 car loads of shingles in 1897,
as compared with IA, ,194 for the pre-
ceding year, net increase in one year
of 4 $3.50 car loads, or PAT train loads of
twenty cars each.
Let one 60 down to the yards on
some busy day and see train load of
twenty cars Of lumber stretching its
symmetrical length along the tracks.
Let him imagine ten such trains
stretching out one after another Then
let him think of ten times that num-
ber of trains; yes, twelve times that
and he would not yet have reached the
transportation facilities necessary to
send out the lumber product of Wash
ington to Eastern market alone last
year. 1t took 1880 trains of twenty
cars each to carry this vast freight
halfway across the continent.
All this was exclusive of carge ship
ments, which last year amounted to
39S, ,434, ,O9S feet of lumber and 65,O37-
125 pieces of lathing.
These exact and reliable figures are
available just now to the Post Intelli-
gencer through the business energy
and courtesy of Victor HI. Beckman,
editor of the Pacific Trade Lumber
Journal, by whom they have been
compiled for the forthcoming number
of his own paper at great expendi-
ture of time and personal labor. 1t is
no fulsome fiattery or meaningless
compliment to say of Mr.. Beckman
that he is generally conceded to be
the best informed man on lumber and
shingle matters in the Pacific North
west.
The cargo shipments from this state
last year show not only the enormous
dimensions to which the lumber ship
ming interests have grown, but they
show as we'll the world wide market
which the state now has at its COM
mand. Besides, large quantities ship
ned to California and Alaska lumber,
from this state found actual shipment
and sale to no less than twenty-three
foreign countries. In some OF these,
as for example, in Japan and China
the market is just opening, and all IN
dications point to gigantic enlarge
ment of it in the future.
Japan Is practically without lumber,
except of very small size, and is now
doing an immense amount OF building
The big indemnity which sent stream
of cash into that country, as result
of the war with China, has set on foot
hundreds of new manufacturing enter
nrises. docks, wharves and building
movements in all parts of the empire.
A special correspondent OF the Post
Intelligencer ascertained last year that