Mills move to Salmon Bay

Saw and shingle mills were first established on Salmon Bay in 1888. After the the Great Fire of 1889 destroyed 29 blocks of Seattle’s downtown business district, including Yesler’s Mill on Elliott Bay, Salmon Bay mills grew in number and significance, supplying lumber for much of the reconstruction of the city’s core. The first few Salmon Bay mills are noted in the 1889 plat map to the right. The below survey map, created five years later for the Ship Canal project, shows 10 mills along the waterfront.

Shingletown

In 1890, the newly incorporated Town of Ballard boasted a growing industrial area, with three shingle mills and three sawmills, including the Seattle Cedar Company, the Stimson Mill Company, and the Salmon Bay Mill Company. Ballard soon became known as the “shingle capital of the world,” and by 1915 there were some 20 mills along Salmon Bay.

Operating on the Bay

Water was integral to operation of the sawmills, with some structures built over the high tide line. Timber was floated to the mills through the small canal that connected Lake Union to Salmon Bay, and from Puget Sound through Shilshole Bay. Prior to processing, mills stored timber in the bay, which prevented wood from drying and splitting and allowed for easier handling. Small ships carried cut lumber and shingles for export from Salmon Bay’s shallow waters to larger vessels anchored in the Sound. Railroad car ferries also provided water transport of rail cars loaded with lumber.

The 1901 dredging and widening of the channel to Puget Sound for the Ship Canal project helped lumber, shipbuilding, fishery, and other industries expand in Salmon Bay.

Lumbermen and workers go west

In the late 1800s, timber barons of the over-logged Great Lakes region began to invest in the richly forested Puget Sound area, connected by the Great Northern Railway in 1893. Among the first in Ballard were T. D. Stimson, who moved the family lumber business from Michigan in 1890, bought up timberland, and opened Stimson Mill; and brothers William and Alexander McEwan, also from Michigan, who established the Seattle Cedar Lumber Manufacturing Company in the same year. William Bolcom moved to Seattle from Minnesota in 1901, establishing the Canal Mill and the Bolcom Mill on Salmon Bay.

Midwestern timber workers followed the industry west to work in logging camps and mills.

Working conditions

Although relatively well-paid, the dangerous nature of shingle weavers’ work, lack of care and compensation for injuries and respiratory illness, and the unpredictability of market-driven mill closures, all strengthened the demand for union representation.

Mill workers living in boarding houses faced crowded conditions. In the 1907 letter to the Mayor of Ballard to the right, the manager of the Hazelton Rooming House, which housed Stimson Mill workers, requested assistance feeding some 20 boarders who were quarantined due to small pox, stating that she “cannot afford charity on so large a scale.”

In 1913, when Ballard shingle weavers struck for increased wages and union recognition, mill owner Napoleon Campbell attempted to cast them as radicals by arranging to have his own mill dynamited. This would justify hiring a private security force during the strike. Workers from the Campbell mill responded by joining Renton coal miners in petitioning for the recall of King County Sheriff Cudihee, claiming he had accepted payment from business owners to deputize private security, who acted as aggressive strikebreakers.

Not all lumbermen objected to workers’ concerns. In 1914, Salmon Bay shingle mill owner William Turgeon set up a cooperative arrangement that guaranteed workers 75% pay during market-driven mill closures.

There was also public sympathy for the strikers, who invited local pastors to investigate their working conditions. One followed the tour with a sermon entitled “The Price of Shingles Versus the Price of Souls.”

Mill owners object to the locks

Salmon Bay mill owners had long argued for the Ship Canal locks to be located east at the head of the bay, and they loudly objected to the final decision to place the locks to the west, which would result in Salmon Bay’s water level rising. Not only would the mills be flooded, but log booms and vessels would be forced to navigate the locks, slowing operations. Although in 1898, Salmon Bay property owners had been compensated for planned flooding behind the locks, over the intervening years, the mills had expanded in the to-be-condemned area, making moving structures above the water more costly. Proponents of the lock placement argued for the benefits of creating a freshwater harbor that would allow expanded use by shipbuilding, fishing, and other industries.

An 1898 Superior Court judgment over the compensation to mill and other property owners along Salmon Bay indicated that water level behind the locks would be raised by seven feet. However, Army Corps of Engineers’ District Engineer Hiram Chittenden attested that surveys had predicted a nine-foot rise, not seven. The court insisted that the number in the judgment was binding. This error meant that the mills would be flooded by an additional two feet of water, for which they had not been compensated. The City of Seattle’s plans to regrade Shilshole Avenue above the waterline were also affected.

King County was required to conduct a second condemnation action in 1915, prior to canal completion, to accommodate the actual water level. The drawings and photographs from Salmon Bay Condemnation Survey No. 1255 document the mill properties, buildings, and equipment, indicating the locations of the seven-foot and nine-foot water lines.

Survey Drawings

Survey drawings and photographs were created to document the buildings and equipment that would be affected by the higher water level of Salmon Bay. The drawings provide details of the mills’ layout and equipment.

The Stimson Mill

The Stimson Mill Company was incorporated and began operating the Stimson Mill on Salmon Bay in 1890. To become one of the largest sawmills in the region, the Stimson Mill employed modern equipment and was among the earliest in Seattle to use electric-powered machinery. By 1914, the Stimson Mill had 37 electric motors and was the “best lighted lumber-manufacturing establishment in the world.

The drawing below shows the foundation plan, with a red line indicating the locations of the seven- and nine-foot waterlines.

Bridges

With federal funds approved for the canal and locks, the City of Seattle worked towards preparing roads and bridges to handle increased traffic, both on land and on the water. Bridges would also have to accommodate the larger boats that could now make passage through the waterway. Voter-approved bonds funded construction of two bridges. The Ballard Bridge opened in 1916 and the Fremont Bridge in June 1917, three weeks before the formal dedication of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Water and Sewer

The City also needed to improve water and sewer service north of the canal. In 1913, funds were appropriated for a tunnel to carry water from the Capitol Hill reservoir across the east end of Lake Union. Two shafts 65 feet deep and 16 feet in diameter made of reinforced concrete contained a concrete tunnel 12 feet in diameter and 916 feet long. Steel water mains replaced the wood stave pipes previously carried on the Latona Bridge. The engineers predicted “this structure will… probably be ample for the needs of the section lying north of the Lake Washington Canal for all time.”

To manage sewage, the North Trunk Sewer was completed in 1918. Twelve feet in diameter, it carried wastewater under the canal and Fort Lawton and discharged into Puget Sound.

The 1917 Lumber Strike

In July 1917, the IWW and the AFL both participated in a timber worker strike that stretched from Montana to western Washington. The strike shut down 90% of timber operations in western Washington which hampered the industry’s ability to meet new demand for lumber as the United States engaged in World War I. The government needed spruce for its first fleet of military airplanes, and fir and other wood were needed for ships, encampments, and other equipment and infrastructure.

To address the shortfall, the U.S. Army established a Spruce Production Division. Its leader, Colonel Brice P. Disque, formed an organization of workers and employers, the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen (the 4L), to encourage them to set aside labor issues in favor of the war effort. To boost output of spruce lumber, thousands of Spruce Production Division enlistees were assigned to logging camps and mills.

In 1918, the Spruce Production Division reported that 85% of timber workers in its Northwest districts were 4L members.

University of Washington President Henry Suzzallo served on the Washington State Council of Defense and helped with negotiations between labor and lumbermen, who resisted making concessions, especially to the Wobblies. Under federal pressure, in March 1918, the lumbermen agreed to the 8-hour day and improved conditions in lumber camps, ending the strike. They gained federal support in opposing the IWW, who were characterized as anti-American.

After the war, most mills reverted to the ten hour day.

Shingletown

The 1901 dredging of the waterway to Puget Sound for the Ship Canal improved mill operations for over a decade. When Salmon Bay mill owners later objected to the planned placement of the locks, they claimed that the flooding would force them to close. But although some mill structures had to be moved above the new waterline, Shingletown did not disappear immediately after the rising of Salmon Bay.

At least 12 mills remained in 1919, including the Stimson, Canal, Campbell, and Bolcom mills. The gradual closure of the mills is primarily attributed to economic depression and other market forces (including the introduction of composite roofing). By 1940, five mills were operating on Salmon Bay. The Cedar Lumber Manufacturing Company was the last to close in 1973.

This joint exhibit of the King County Archives and the Seattle Municipal Archives is part of a regional commemoration of the Lake Washington Ship Canal Centennial which took place in 2017. This exhibit was revised and updated in 2023.