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| My "sister" Lisa and "niece" Ivy |
Walking through historic Port Gamble is an AMAZING experience... there are so many snippets of history - it's hard to take it in - all in one trip. Or in all one blog entry. I found it amazing, and didn't realize it until this trip there (and I've been there several times) ... that one of the biggest plants in the town where I grew up (Eau Claire, WI) ... the Pope and Talbot Mills started out here.
So let me share the history as reported from
HistoryLink...... all the following information & photos is taken from that link.
Port Gamble -- Thumbnail History
HistoryLink.org Essay 5505
:
Port Gamble represents one of the few remaining examples of company
towns, thousands of which were built in the nineteenth century by
industrialists to house employees. Founders Josiah Keller, William
Talbot, and Andrew Pope planned the town to reflect the character of
their hometown, East Machias, Maine, where many of the early employees
originated. For 142 years, the community existed to support sawmills
that produced lumber for the world market. The mill closed in 1995, but
as a National Historic Site, the townsite has been preserved to reflect
an authentic company mill town.
The first known residents of Port Gamble were members of the Nooksclime,
Clallam, or S'Kallam tribe who fished and gathered food along Hood
Canal. The S'Klallams belonged to the linguistic group, South Coast
Salish, which populated Puget Sound. Tribes traded and intermarried and
generally experienced little conflict except for raids from outside the
region. In 1841, a U.S. Navy expedition led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes
(1798-1877) named the two-mile-long bay at the mouth of Hood Canal
after Navy Lieutenant Robert Gamble, who was wounded in the War of 1812.
In the summer of 1853, San Francisco lumber merchant and sea captain
William Talbot (1816-1881) spotted the sand spit at the mouth of the bay
as a likely place for a lumber mill. Talbot was a partner of Josiah
Keller (d. 1862), Andrew Pope (1820-1878), and Charles Foster in the
Puget Mill Company. They planned to cut the abundant trees of Oregon
Territory into lumber for sale in California and across the Pacific. The
sand spit sheltered ships and was close to stands of timber.
S'Klallams already lived on the spit and on the bluff above. Keller
induced the natives to move across the bay to Point Julia in exchange
for free lumber, firewood, and Christmas gifts. The S'Kallams called the
site Teekalet, "brightness of the noonday sun," for the way the water
and sand reflected light on sunny days. Talbot borrowed that name for
the mill.
Puget Mill Co.
Talbot's partner Keller soon arrived in another ship with the boiler,
engine, and muley saw. By September 1853, the mill at Teekalet was
cutting logs into lumber. The muley saw was a single blade that moved up
and down in a mechanical version of a sawpit. The initial output was
modest, 2,000 board feet a day -- about a tenth of the lumber needed to
build a five-room house of the time. The first lumber went to enclose
the mill and to build cabins, a bunkhouse, and a cookhouse. In January,
Keller and his assistant superintendent Cyrus Walker (1827-1913)
installed a sash saw that was lighter and 10 times more productive.
On January 26, 1854, the Treaty of Point No Point ceded the land around
Port Gamble to the United States and relegated the S'Klallams to a
reservation with the Skokomish at the bend of Hood Canal. The S'Klallams
were not interested in sharing a small reservation with another tribe
and they continued to reside at Point Julia, which came to be called
Little Boston.
The small community of two-dozen whites on the sand spit included Joshua
Keller, his wife and two children, and men from the partners' hometown
of East Machias, Maine. The store offered goods for sale to settlers and
natives, but other amenities were sparse. Single workers lived in the
bunkhouse and families had small cabins. During the Indian War of
1855-1856, Keller ordered construction of a wood blockhouse against an
attack. A raid by the Haidas of Canada came in November 1856. The
settlers held their own until the arrival of the steam sloop U.S.S.
Massachusetts. One sailor, Gustavus Englebrecht, was killed in that encounter. He became the first burial in a cemetery on the bluff.
Men for the Mill
Staffing the mill proved to be a challenge. The newly organized
Washington Territory was wilderness and there were few men available for
work. Keller hired settlers, most of whom worked only long enough to
earn cash and file claims on land of their own, and S'Kallams from Point
Julia. One early worker was Dexter Horton (1825-1904), who ran the
cookhouse. He saved his wages and moved to Seattle where he opened a
store and later a bank.
With the help of their Maine-based partner, Charles Foster, Pope,
Talbot, and Keller recruited experienced mill workers from East Machias
to come West. A common device was a six-month contract with the
employers paying the cost of passage. The employee was obligated to work
off the expense over a period of six months. Workers wrote home of the
opportunities and steady employment. (Water-powered Maine sawmills
closed in the winter; the steam-powered mill at Teekalet ran year
round). By necessity, Puget Mill Co. established a company town to
provide housing and food for workers who had no other place to live.
In 1858, the partners added a second mill farther out on the spit. That
operation used newly developed circular saws, and as a result both
production and the payroll increased. Keller also built a mill to grind
grain into flour for the cookhouse. The flour sold for many years under
the Kitsap brand. That same year, Keller filed a plat with the
territorial government for a town called Teekalet. The town plan
followed the grid pattern common to new cities of the West.
The company built houses for managers and married workers up on the
bluff with the bunkhouse and cookhouse down on the spit close to the
mill. A dance hall provided entertainment. Andrew Pope wrote, "We have
really got some very valuable men here, and if we can make them
contented by laying out a few hundred doll[ar]s I think it is a good
investment." In 1859, Puget Mill Co. built the first school in Kitsap
County. In 1860, a community hall went up for "those who desire public
worship, social enjoyment or fraternal communion and to educate the
children" (Eakins, 25). That year the Census counted 15 married couples
and 15 children in the town, with a total population of 202.
Work
Every morning at 6:20 a.m., the workers woke to the mill whistle. At
6:40 a.m., the whistle signaled a breakfast often consisting of "boiled
corn beef, potatoes, baked beans, hash, hot griddle cakes, biscuits, and
coffee" (Coman, 70). The men had 20 minutes to eat and report for a
11½-hour day. A good worker earned $30 a month and he was paid in
fifty-cent pieces, daily if he chose. Many other Puget Sound mill
workers received warrants that they had to take to Seattle to cash.
According to Pope and Talbot historian Edwin Coman Jr., "four-bit"
pieces became a symbol of employment at Puget Mill.
The employees worked hard and were paid well, but sawmills of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were dangerous places. Saws and
other machinery lacked protective shielding and men often worked inches
from sharp blades that could in an instant snatch a finger, an arm, or
even a life. Company records show that 10 to 20 men quit every day, but
were immediately replaced by new workers.
The oscillating sash saws, spinning circular saws, and planing mills
generated sawdust, which fueled the steam boilers. Wood waste, called
slabs, could be used in the boilers of steamships and the rest was
burned in open fires that blazed continuously from 1855 to 1925. Unless
the wind blew it away, a pall of woodsmoke constantly hung over the mill
and the community. The mill at Teekalet was a cargo mill and cut lumber
to load on ships, some owned by the partners. The ships carried Puget
Mill cargoes to San Francisco, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), Australia,
and Asia.
Keller was superintendent of the Teekalet mill, but he was often gone.
Fellow "Mainer" Cyrus Walker, a member of the founding crew of 1853,
filled in during those absences. When Keller died in 1862, Walker became
superintendent. Under Walker's management, the town of Port Gamble grew
and prospered.
The Town of Port Gamble
In 1868, Walker took down the old mill and replaced it with components
from another operation. That year, the Territorial Legislature approved a
new name for the town -- Port Gamble. Most of the workers had Maine
origins, but Chinese, Hawaiians, and at least one African American
worked there as well. Members of the S'Kallam tribe also found
employment and were well regarded as workers. The S'Klallams built a
village at Point Julia called Boston -- later Little Boston -- just
across the bay with lumber provided by Puget Mill. They commuted to work
by canoe.
In the 1870s, Port Gamble boasted a Dramatic Club, a baseball team, a
reading room, a circulating library, and a 14-piece brass band. The
general store supplied food and other goods and posted newspaper
clippings for all to read. In 1879, the Union Congregational Church was
built in a style reminiscent of New England churches. The pastor doubled
as company physician.
Superintendent Walker saw that housing reflected the social and ethnic
distinctions of the community. Managers had the best homes on the high
ground, the superintendent's home being the largest and best sited of
all. Skilled workers and their families got the next best dwellings. In
the 1880s,
Scandinavian immigrants and their families arrived on the
transcontinental railroad along with Germans, Swiss, Slovaks, and
Greeks. They moved into homes built on the other side of second-growth
forest to the west and south of town in neighborhoods called New England
and Murphy Row.
Unmarried men lived in bunkhouses and cabins on the spit. Hotels on the
spit accommodated loggers, longshoremen, and sailors who often
constituted a third of the population. Chinese employees always lived in
separate quarters. Residents enjoyed modern conveniences such as indoor
plumbing and clean water. The children could go to school and the
company took care of virtually every need, from childbirth to a mortuary
and burial services.
Company policy prohibited gambling and women of questionable character.
Sailors and loggers rowed to Point Julia for the female companionship
lacking in Port Gamble. In spite of Cyrus Walker's opposition to
alcohol, the company store offered liquor for sale.
In 1888, the original partners replaced their 68-year-old brother-in-law
Cyrus Walker as superintendent with East Machias native Edwin Ames.
Ames ran Puget Mill Co. and Port Gamble until 1925 and contributed his
name to the superintendent's house built in 1888. Ames instituted some
technical innovations that Walker had resisted, particularly electric
lighting. Incandescent lights in the mills served an important safety
function because the risk of fire was so great in mills. Before long
employee homes glowed with electric lighting as well. Walker had also
resisted installing band saws that cut faster and wasted less of the
log. That innovation did not arrive until just before World War I.
Community
Puget Mill Co. sponsored celebrations every Fourth of July. Employees
had the day off and families from other company mills at Port Ludlow and
Utsalady rode company tugs and steamers to Port Gamble. Some years, one
of the other towns played host. Company cooks and housewives prepared
picnic feasts, baseball teams competed, and at dark, fireworks lit the
sky -- all paid for by the company. After the children were put to bed,
music and dance filled the social halls. Christmas was another important
holiday, again with a community feast, caroling, and gifts for every
child.
A centerpiece of the town was the general store on Rainier Avenue. Here
residents purchased all their supplies and received news of the world
from newsclippings on a bulletin board. The largest structure, aside
from the mill was the Puget Hotel built in 1907 on the bluff overlooking
Hood Canal. The hotel was intended for tourists and to house visiting
company officials. An annex had rooms for single workers. The hotel was
operated as a concession and fell outside the company restrictions on
gambling and alcohol. As a result, the saloon and small games
flourished.
In the 1930s, there was a Masonic Order, an Odd-Fellows, an Orthopedic
Guild to support the Children's Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, a Church
Guild, Scouts, and a Community Club. Monday was library night at the
Community Hall. Tuesdays and Thursdays were men's athletics. Wednesday
night, the Scouts met. On Fridays, movies were shown. Saturday nights
were for dances, card parties, and other social events.
Unions
Labor organizers tried their best to unionize Port Gamble workers in the
1880s, but Cyrus Walker and Edwin Ames resisted fiercely. The Knights
of Labor pushed mill operators for a shortened workday but Cyrus Walker
beat them to the punch by cutting Puget Mill's hours. The shorter day
(which resulted in an increase in production) did not end demands for
higher wages. Puget Mill Co. steadfastly blocked all efforts by unions
by using detectives who infiltrated logging camps, mills, and meetings
seeking intelligence on organizing efforts. Compared to conditions at
other mills, Port Gamble residents led the good life.
In July 1917, just after the U.S. entered World War I, the Industrial
Workers of the World and a union affiliated with the American Federation
of Labor struck the Northwest lumber industry. Port Gamble workers did
not strike, but they benefited when owners accepted an eight-hour day in
exchange for a government crackdown on the unions. Wages also went up
at Port Gamble, but so did charges for room and board. Port Gamble
workers were nominally unionized through the company-sponsored Loyal
Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.
The hard times of the 1930s triggered a resurgence in unionization
efforts throughout American industry. In May 1935, McCormick Lumber
broke with tradition and recognized the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union
(American Federation of Labor). A contract granted workers an
eight-hour day and set the base wage at 50 cents an hour. This did not
prevent a shutdown by the AFL's rival, Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) in 1937. But when the strikers were asked to return
to work, Port Gamble reopened on a single shift. Thereafter, unionized
workers and management acknowledged each other's rights and roles in the
workplace and contracts were negotiated annually.
Zenith
New homes in Port Gamble were built as needed by contractors hired by
the company. Some managers built their own homes. Reflecting the changes
that swept America at the time, the company erected a service station
and garage in 1920. Some homes from Puget Mill's Port Ludlow were moved
to Port Gamble to add to the housing stock in the 1920s. The service
station, however, was the last new construction by the company in Port
Gamble. The automobile solved the transportation problem for workers who
wanted more than a small company house.
The residents of Port Gamble prospered when the mill prospered. During
the Panic of 1893, Port Gamble avoided closure by supplying the Hawaiian
market. The Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 got things going again in the
Puget Sound region. The Panic of 1907 compelled management to close the
mill for six months, however. Many skilled employees moved on and when
the mill reopened, some, but not all returned. The good times for the
Puget Mill Co. had ended.
By the 1910s, Port Gamble's aging mills (1858 and 1870) could no longer
compete with more modern operations and direct connections to
transcontinental railroads. Despite a determined sales effort and
increased production in the early 1920s, Puget Mill Co. still lost
money. Portland lumberman Charles R. McCormick stepped forward and
offered to buy Puget Mill Co. and Pope and Talbot accepted.
On October 16, 1925, Charles R. McCormick Lumber Co. took possession of
the mill and the town at Port Gamble. McCormick retained the work force
and proceeded to invest $2 million to replace the mill with a modern
electric operation. In 1927, 1,000 people worked at Port Gamble, up from
100 three years before. But the Great Depression (1929-1939) and
McCormick's ambitious plans for renovation and expansion left the
company in desperate financial straits. The Port Ludlow mill closed at
the end of 1935. Residents at Port Gamble could buy their homes for $35
on condition that they haul the buildings away.
Home for the S'Klallam
The Indian settlement of Little Boston on the sand spit at Point Julia
was home to S'Klallam workers and their families. The residents
constructed their simple houses with Puget Mill lumber, but the homes
lacked fireplaces, electric power, and indoor plumbing. Under the Indian
Reorganization Act of 1934, the U.S. Government bought 1,234 acres from
Puget Mill Co. for the tribe.
On June 16, 1938, the land became the reservation for the Port Gamble
Band of S'Klallam Indians. The homes at Little Boston were burned as
health hazards and the Bureau of Indian Affairs constructed new homes
farther upland.
Pope and Talbot Returns
On February 15, 1938, Puget Mill Co. foreclosed on the Charles R.
McCormick Lumber Co. and took back control of Port Gamble. In 1940,
Puget Mill Co. consolidated and became Pope and Talbot, Inc. World War
II provided a boost to production and to employment. As much as 60
percent of the lumber produced during the war years went to build
housing for Naval personnel and war workers in Bremerton. Robert
Mahaffay of
The Seattle Times wrote in 1944:
"The high screech of the band saws in a hundred Pacific Northwest mills
is a battle song. The slam and thud of logs on a sawmill's carriage,
the groaning of the bull chain, the rattle of lumber on metal rollers,
are undertones in the raw-melody singing of pontoon planks across which
tanks will rumble, and of dock timbers for invasion beaches scattered
around the world... "(Stein, 86).
After World War II, economic growth meant home construction, so the Port
Gamble mill continued to produce lumber. In 1962, the massive Columbus
Day Storm downed billions of board feet of timber that had to be
salvaged quickly. The Forest Service sold its timber overseas to the
highest bidder and the price of logs climbed. Timber that fed Northwest
mills was loaded onto ships for Japan. The Columbus Day Storm also
damaged the Puget Hotel beyond repair and the structure was demolished.
Pope and Talbot, Inc. shifted its business focus by shedding its
shipping business, one of the mainstays since the Gold Rush. In 1967,
the company invested $1.7 million to convert the Port Gamble mill from
processing old-growth timber to processing smaller second-growth logs, a
recognition of the looming exhaustion of virgin forests. In 1975, the
company added a $3 million hardwood chip facility, the first to make a
commercial use of alder which grew on logged off lands.
More upgrades to
the sawmill increased output in 1979 by 70 percent. Modern equipment
required fewer workers however, and the payroll at Port Gamble slumped.
The development of Kitsap County allowed workers to own homes and to
commute to work, so the significance of company town ebbed.
In December 1985, in its tradition of flexibility, Pope and Talbot, Inc.
reorganized. Pope and Talbot, Inc. separated its assets and transferred
major properties to Pope Resources. Pope Resources, Inc. took over the
Port Gamble townsite and the mill as well as 78,000 acres of timber and
the real estate development at Port Ludlow. Port Gamble and the mill
were then leased to Pope and Talbot, Inc., which continued to saw logs
and make hardboard.
In 1966, the town of Port Gamble was acknowledged for its contribution
to the heritage of the region by being included on the National Register
of Historic Places. The community continued to function in its
traditional role as a home for mill workers, but also addressed its
historical significance with a museum.
End of an Epoch
Changes in the timber business dogged profitability at the Port Gamble
Mill. The price of logs was up and the price of finished lumber was
down. After a month-long shutdown in 1990, the work force was cut from
175 to 71 and from two shifts to one. Thirty-three employee families
still lived in Port Gamble.
On November 30, 1995, the 20 remaining employees reported for the last
day of work at the Port Gamble mill. The mill could not remain
profitable and Pope and Talbot had to cease operations and sell off the
equipment. The mill at Port Gamble was the oldest continuously operating
sawmill in the U.S., at 142 years.
The Next Chapter
Coincident with the closing of the Port Gamble mill, Pope and Talbot's
lease on the town expired. Pope Resources assumed responsibility for
maintaining the property including buildings and infrastructure. The
managers decided not to sell off the town or to evict residents and to
maintain it as a historic resource.
Port Gamble was located in unincorporated Kitsap County and was subject
to the state Growth Management Act, which regulated urban development in
rural areas. The Central Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board
and the Kitsap County Commissioners both approved the designation Rural
Historic Town. This allowed development of the townsite and its
buildings while retaining its historic character. Businesses and tourist
activities were induced to come to town and take advantage of the
picturesque location. The service station became an artists' co-op. The
meat and produce market became an antiques store. The general store
continued to offer merchandise. The Walker-Ames House, home of mill
superintendents since the 1890s, with its sweeping views of water and
mountains, will become a venue for weddings and special events.
Mills at Port Gamble, ca. 1861
Courtesy Port Gamble Museum Archives
Puget Mill Co., Port Gamble, 1889
Courtesy WSU Digital Collections (WSU428)
S'Klallam settlement Little Boston at Point Julia on Port Gamble Bay, Puget Mill Co. in distance, 1907
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. UW4971)
Ships loading lumber, Puget Mill Co., Port Gamble, February 9, 1895
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. UW4960)
Double circular saws at Port Gamble Mill, and saw filer James A. Thompson, ca. 1905.
Courtesy Port Gamble Museum Archives (Neg. 609-12)
Employees, Puget Mill Co., Port Gamble, ca. 1905
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. UW4953)
Puget Mill Co. employee houses, Port Gamble, 1906. Cookhouse is at right.
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. WAS0791)
Puget Mill Co. married employee homes, Port Gamble, December 1910
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. WAS0790)
Puget Mill Co. offices and employee store, Port Gamble, December 1918
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. WAS0788)
Puget Mill Co. employees, Port Gamble, September 1913
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. UW17532)
Excelsior Cornet Band, Port Gamble, ca. 1885
Photo by Hiram Hoyt, Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. WAS0299)
St. Paul's Episcopal Church (1879), Port Gamble, 2003
HistoryLink.org photo by David Wilma
Puget Hotel (Bebb and Mendel, 1907), Port Gamble, 1912
Photo by Asahel Curtis, Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. CUR23736)
Port Gamble employee housing, ca. 1910
Courtesy Port Gamble Museum Archives
There are more photos located HERE ......
