Everett, Wash.
Published: Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Area historian recalls primacy of logging and mills in Northwest

By Julie Muhlstein
Herald Columnist

 Logging was big business in the Northwest way back before Bill Gates and Microsoft, before William Boeing's first plane ride in 1915, even before the original 1901 Wallin & Nordstrom shoe store opened in downtown Seattle.

The Monroe Historical Society marks the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in 1893 as a catalyst that set off a logging boom. More than a century ago, sawmills were buzzing -- Stephen Bros., Wagner and Wilson, and High Rock. For a time, those sawmills sent a steady supply of lumber east on the rails.

Historian Eric Erickson will bring those days to life in a program beginning at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Tualco Grange near Monroe. The event is part of the Monroe Historical Society's quarterly meeting, and is free and open to the public.

Erickson, 72, of Anacortes, has a new book to add to his list of historical works, which include "Albert Sperry Kerry Sr., Lumberman, 1866-1939," "High Point Mill Company: A Photographic History" and "A Pictorial History of the Preston Mill Company, 1892-1996." Some of his books are in the Northwest Room collection at the Everett Public Library.

His latest is "Lumber and Shingle Mill Index, Snohomish County, 1853-2008." Erickson has also cataloged mills over more than a century in Skagit, Whatcom and King counties.

"It has over 23,000 companies listed by location within the county, by operating dates," said Erickson. Among his sources are Polk directories, a 1910 plat map for Snohomish County, history books covering the county, and hundreds of timber industry trade publications.

A list of mills might seem like dry reading, but attentive readers may find fascinating stories between the lines.

"Fires were pretty common, the result of malfunctioning machinery or arson for insurance purposes," Erickson said. "In a lot of cases, an article will say a mill is starting up for a 10-year cut of timber, employing 25 men. And 10 years to the day, the mill burns down. In the old days, the machinery was salvaged. They would move down the road 10 miles and build a new sawmill," he said.

The grandson of a sawmill owner, Erickson was raised in Issaquah. Until retirement, he worked as engineering manager of the Seattle Water Department, now Seattle Public Utilities. Long interested in history, Erickson is past president of the Issaquah Historical Society and a past board member of the King County Association of Historical Organizations.

Erickson recently had books on display at the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe, and connected with the Monroe Historical Society during a visit to the group's pioneer Shannahan Cabin at the fairgrounds.

He is knowledgeable about colorful characters involved in the early timber industry. While not a well-known name like Bill Gates or Bill Boeing, Albert Sperry Kerry Sr., founder of the Kerry Lumber Co. in 1896, helped organize the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition and was president of a committee that built Seattle's grand Olympic Hotel. Kerry Park, on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill, was built on land he donated to the city.

When Kerry's mill burned, he rebuilt it in Alaska, where he ran a sawmill on Lake Bennett. "Kerry built the famous boat the Olive May, named after his wife and daughter," Erickson said. In Robert Service's poem of the icy north, "The Cremation of Sam McGee," the poet called the boat the Alice May. "Robert Service wrote the poem in 1906; Kerry built the boat in 1898," Erickson said.

Darius Kinsey was another notable in the region's logging history. Employed by the Seattle and Lake Shore Railroad Co., he took photographs that documented life in logging camps. His black-and-white photos of loggers and huge tree stumps are iconic Northwest images.

Erickson has presented programs to history groups and logging industry audiences. These days, environmental concerns and the controversy over spotted owl protection are topics likely to come up wherever he speaks about logging.

"In Everett, people live on Cedar Street, or Pine," Erickson said. "They live in wooden houses. Trees are a renewable resource. And lumber is still a prime building material."



Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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