But in 1902, fire struck again, this time burning the sawmill and all the surrounding support buildings. Once the burned-out mill was rebuilt, the company grew quickly, shipping most of the product across the country by rail. When the Northern Pacific first came to town, Frank Stevenson even felled a cedar tree across Railroad Street so people could walk over the swampy thoroughfare to his hotel. Miles of puncheons, logs laid perpendicular to the direction of travel, allowed uncomfortable but all-season travel. When the first roads were cut through, the mud made them impassible throughout much of the year. Under the forest cover lay a flat, wet plateau with very little drainage. Johannes Mahler's lumber wagon, which also delivered the Stevensons and many of the other early settlers on the final leg of their journeys, was one of the most useful vehicles of the Plateau at the time.īesides dealing with the massive trees in clearing land for farms, the pioneers had countless thousands of smaller logs to dispose of, but they soon discovered a use for them. William McMillan was celebrated when he built the first house here out of sawn boards, hauled from the nearest mill in Wilkeson. Settlers hand split cedar for boards and shingles. They were felled by hand and most were burned because they were too big to deal with. When pioneers first came to the Enumclaw Plateau, huge trees stood in the way of farming. "Final Logs Roll Through Weyerhaeuser Mill". * Current discussion of the Garrett Tree Farmer: Forestry Forumħ. Use of Articulated Wheeled Tractors in Logging The Courier Publishing, Enumclaw, 1983, and republished by Heritage Quest Press, Orting, 2004. Located in front of the library, this locally sponsored piece is testament to the 125-year role of loggers in our community.ġ. Today the history of Enumclaw area logging is celebrated with a bronze sculpture of an oxen team pulling a huge log out of the woods. For a few years, a yard on highway 410 in Buckley still stuffed local logs into containers bound for China, brought to them by persevering Enumclaw gyppos and log truck drivers. (7) But even that did not end logging in Enumclaw. That was the final blow, and in April of 2009, the White River mill closed its doors for good after more than a century as an integral part of our community. The surviving but greatly reduced local industry was kept afloat by the export market, and then by the domestic housing bubble of the early 2000s, until it crashed in 2008. However, another global trend softened the impact of these changes for Weyerhaeuser and the gyppos: a burgeoning Asian market. And with much larger reserves, Canada became a major competitor for local mills. The large companies began looking for cheaper and easier places to farm trees, such as the southern states and developing countries.
With most of the virgin timber gone, public lands were closing down to preserve the few old growth trees that were left. The lumber industry in Washington peaked in the latter half of the 20th century, but its days were numbered.
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