A portrait of loggers at the Sherwood logging camp, Washington State, USA, 1900.

Kane Khanh | History
May 21, 2024
"In the early 1890s, about a third of Washington's population worked in logging camps, sawmills, shingle mills, and in factories making wooden doors and window sashes. Nearly 1.2 billion board feet of lumber and almost 1.9 billion shingles were shipped from the state in 1892. Huge trees still filled the coastal forests, and no one thought the supply would ever run out. This 1890s photo shows a giant fir log at the Huron Lumber Company in Bothell. The town got its start in 1886, when David Bothell started a lumber camp and shingle mill in the area." -MOHAI. Photo courtesy MOHAI, Seattle Historical Society Collection, image number shs1039.Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives”In the early 1890s, about a third of Washington’s population worked in logging camps, sawmills, shingle mills, and in factories making wooden doors and window sashes. Nearly 1.2 billion board feet of lumber and almost 1.9 billion shingles were shipped from the state in 1892. Huge trees still filled the coastal forests, and no one thought the supply would ever run out. This 1890s photo shows a giant fir log at the Huron Lumber Company in Bothell. The town got its start in 1886, when David Bothell started a lumber camp and shingle mill in the area.” -MOHAI. Photo courtesy MOHAI, Seattle Historical Society Collection, image number shs1039.  In this photo, taken around 1892, a group of men post atop a massive fir stump near Bothell.Courtesy MOHAI

In this photo, taken around 1892, a group of men post atop a massive fir stump near Bothell.

"By the late 1920s, many logging companies had started using trucks to haul logs out of the forest and down to the sawmill. This photo was taken in the mid-1920s, somewhere in western Washington. A Kelly-Springfield truck hauls a load of fir logs along a logging road . This photo was taken in the mid-1920s by Bellingham photographer J. Wilbur Sandison and copied a few years later by Webster & Stevens." -MOHAI. Photo courtesy MOHAI, PEMCO Webster and Stevens Collection, image number 1983.10.3676.15.Courtesy MOHAI

“By the late 1920s, many logging companies had started using trucks to haul logs out of the forest and down to the sawmill. This photo was taken in the mid-1920s, somewhere in western Washington. A Kelly-Springfield truck hauls a load of fir logs along a logging road . This photo was taken in the mid-1920s by Bellingham photographer J. Wilbur Sandison and copied a few years later by Webster & Stevens.” -MOHAI. Photo courtesy MOHAI, PEMCO Webster and Stevens Collection, image number 1983.10.3676.15.

"Some 70 million acres of commercial forest land once covered the Pacific Northwest. Large Douglas firs, spruce, hemlock, and cedar trees grew west of the Cascade Range. Some firs grew over 300 feet tall, and some cedars reached 15 feet in diameter. In 1905, there were 189 lumber companies in King County alone, employing nearly 8,000 people. By 1910, Washington was the nation's largest lumber-producing state, and the industry employed almost two-thirds of the state's wage earners. This photo, taken around 1905, shows a giant fir tree at the Monroe Logging Company in Carnation, King County." -MOHAI. Photo courtesy MOHAI, Seattle Historical Society Collection, image number shs935.Courtesy Seattle Municipal Archives”Some 70 million acres of commercial forest land once covered the Pacific Northwest. Large Douglas firs, spruce, hemlock, and cedar trees grew west of the Cascade Range. Some firs grew over 300 feet tall, and some cedars reached 15 feet in diameter. In 1905, there were 189 lumber companies in King County alone, employing nearly 8,000 people. By 1910, Washington was the nation’s largest lumber-producing state, and the industry employed almost two-thirds of the state’s wage earners. This photo, taken around 1905, shows a giant fir tree at the Monroe Logging Company in Carnation, King County.” -MOHAI. Photo courtesy MOHAI, Seattle Historical Society Collection, image number shs935.  "Big Creek Logging Company was based in Knappa, Oregon in Clatsop County. Knappa was named in 1891 for a pioneer settler named Aaron Knapp, Jr. The Big Creek Logging Company had a railroad that operated from 1912 to 1923. The company closed permanently in 1942." -UW. Pictured: 0-6-0 Alco locomotive on a log train, Big Creek Logging Company, Knappa, Oregon, circa 1918. Photo courtesy University of Washington Special Collections.

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