The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1909-04-01

SHlNGLE MILL
Another SmOkeStack Add
ed to Everett Industries

| The remark is often heard that OPP
portunities for the man with small
means to start in business for himself
are about gone. That the trusts have
so stiflcd competition that there is no
chance any more for the poor man. This
may or may not be true in the main,
but the supporters of such n theory
would find themselves in deep water il
they could visit a small plant in the out
skirts of Everett, which is impudcntly
grinding out Il good living for its own
ers regardless of trusts or combina-
tions.
| If YOU will take the Ruckcr Ave. car
to the end of the line and then walk out
to 7th and lloyt you will find amidst a
wilderness of blackened stumps and fall
Ell logs little shingle mill, noisily hum
ming away. 1t is an insignificant little
thing-thc pepper box"-the weavers
call it. and it would Just about fill one
corner of the average shingle mill of the
city. 1t is not so different in appear
ance from many little mill stuck away
in the woods and yet there is whole,
volume of facts connected with the
building and operation of it that differ
entiatcs it from the average shingle
mill Four men, all practical weavers
own the plant and each of them do some
thing towards its operation.
When the average mill man contem-
plates a shingle mill, he thinks he must
locate either on the water or close to a
good body of standing timber. When
| L. II. Smith, the filler and manager of
this concern, announced his intention OF
building Il little mill on the point" and
get his shingle bolts from the fallen tim
Der on the 300 acres in the northern
end of the peninsula, everybody gave
him the merry ha, ha! Nobody knew
there was any cedar there There hadn't
been any standing timber there for years.
1t had been logged off and worked up
into bolts and fircwood till nobody
thought there was enough cedar there
|
he couldn't run his mill three months,
and then would have to sell his machine
ry for old junk. But Smith was a wise
old bird. He hadn't been nosing around
| for nothing He went ahead. He and
his three partners bought a Sumner
upright shingle machine, a 35-horse pow
er boiler and by II engine, a cutoff
rig and the other machinery that was
necessary to the operation of his mill
and started to work In two weeks
time from the day they hauled the tim
Der to the site it was running. There
was hardly a pound of nails used in the
whole construction of the framework.
1t was all bolted. And there was where
the results of using his think tank loom
ed up big He declares that when his
timber is gone from around his present
location he can pick his mill up and
three days time from the day he gets
his machinery mloaded at a new loca
ton.
His mill was built but still everybody
considered il good joke. But the tim
Der began to arrive from some myster-
ious source. Every hour of the day you
could hear the ring of the bolt cutters
saw and the thud of the maui The mill
ran day and night shift. 1t has been in
operation for ten weeks and has never
lost an hours time. Mr.. Smith told the
writer some time ago that he had timber
enough in sight to run a year in the
present location. We didn't believe it,,
In common with many Everett people
we had tramped that country over al
dozen times perhaps, and we didn't see
any cedar. But its there. Out of cur
iosity we went out the other day and
followed Smith around the tract Tim
ber? II was alive with it. Fallen of
course, but it was there and as sound
as the day it was fallen. Half buried
in the ground, concealed by wild black
berry vines and young second growth
timber, you find cedar in every direction
when YOU are with a man that knows
how to look for il. And the foreman
told the writer that he knew of many
similar locations, which the average man
would pass up as being worthless.
Nine men operate the mill for both
shifts, They don't make extra big cuts
about 30 thousand every "a hours, but
they make up in quality what they lose
in quantity. One firm in the east wants
their entire output. Making money
OF course they are, Not in great big
amount, perhaps, but they make their
wages and good interest on their