Sources for Research in Forest History: The University of Washington Manuscripts Collection

Abstract

The forest industries provided the foundation upon which the economy of western Washington was built, and these industries continue to play a critical part in that economy. The Boeing Company, the largest single firm in the state for example, was financed from capital earned by William Boeing in the lumber industry. A century (1857-1957) of the Puget Sound region's forest industries is represented in the University of Washington Library's Manuscripts Collection, the earliest papers representing those of the Washington Mill Company1 (Seabeck), while the Stimson Mill Company (Seattle) papers carry manuscript documentation to 1957. The kinds of operations represented range from the somewhat comical barter-type gymnastics of the Yesler, Denny Company (Seattle) to the huge, wide-ranging activities of the Port Blakely Mill Company 2 (Bainbridge Island) and the Puget Mill Company (Port Gamble and Port Ludlow). According to estimates of Edwin G. Ames, a former Northwest manager of the latter firm, these were two of the world's largest mills operating in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are three main categories of businesses represented if the manuscripts are described in terms which stress the regional origins of each firm: one entirely indigenous to the Puget Sound region; two companies established as vertical complements of lumber companies in the San Francisco Bay region; and three which migrated, one from Maine, the others from the Midwest.