Mason County's Timber Roots

Celebrating our DEEP ROOTS

TIMBER HERITAGE IN MASON COUNTY

Stella Wenstob| historical contributor

From Alaska to Northern California, logging towns are an iconic part of the Pacific Northwest. Mill towns, log sorts and boom towns all have their roots in this historical legacy. With Mason County’s Forest Festival fast approaching it is a good time to reflect on Shelton’s distinctive forestry heritage.

In 1853, the mighty growth of Douglas Firs, Sitka Spruce and Western Red Cedar attracted the first industry to Mason County as M.T. Simmons, Wesley B. Gisnel and Orrington Cushman built the first water driven mill on what would become known as Mill Creek. This little enterprise was washed away with flood waters in the first year, but in true pioneer spirit it was rebuilt again. Many more water driven mills were built on Hammersley and Oakland Bay.

Oakland, Arcadia and Union were busy logging communities by the 1860s. In the mid-1880s, the Satsop Railroad was laid to transport logs out of the forests as the easy to reach shoreline timber was dwindling. The railroad terminus was David Shelton’s claim at the head of Oakland Bay – now known as Shelton. Other logging railroads followed as logging continued to boom.

Stewart Holbrock’s Green Commonwealth (1945) recounts the enthusiastic Fourth of July celebrations held in 1887 which included fireworks, a Grand Ball, a shooting match, a greased pole, and possibly the earliest log rolling contest in the state.

Shelton has a continuous history of logger sports of at least one-hundred-and-thirty four years! 1887 was also the year that Sol G. Simpson began building and managing the Puget Sound & Grays Harbor Railroad out of Old Kamilche. It was here that Simpson introduced horse teams to transport the felled logs to the railroad lines. Previously on the west coast, oxen teams were used to do the heavy hauling. Simpson also introduced the steam driven donkey engine for yarding to Puget Sound. By the late 1890s, Simpson joined forces with lumberman A. H. Anderson (also known as the Tall Fir of Mason County) in consolidating the railroads and logging interests in Mason County.

Shelton's Paul Bunyan

In stature and appetite, Anderson has been characterized as a real-life Paul Bunyan. Purportedly, his great height prompted the Shelton Hotel to install an oversize tub and bed for the distinguished guest. Like the Paul Bunyan story of eating exceptionally substantial breakfasts, a fellow logger recalled that for breakfast “Anderson liked a fairly thick beef steak about one foot long, a quart of coffee, and, if he wasn’t really hungry, ten eggs” (Ed Hillier, as quoted in Green Commonwealth 1945:64).

Simpson and Anderson were long seeing capitalists. Unlike other companies of Puget Sound who would sell off their logged lands or let them go into tax arrears, Simpson and Anderson held onto their denuded tenures. They understood the importance of land and the possibility of future logging opportunities. Today, Simpson’s descendants, the Reeds own land across California, Oregon, and Washington – making them the fifth-largest private landowners in the U.S.

Strangely, it wasn’t until the 1920s that Shelton entered the manufacturing side of forestry. Previously, Shelton’s timber had been shipped out to be milled at other locales, such as McCleary, Seattle, Tacoma, and Ports Blakely, or Gamble. Simpson’s son-in-law, Mark Reed led the Simpson Logging Company in this new manufacturing age after Sol Simpson’s retirement.

In 1924, the Simpson’s Logging Company began construction of a power plant and the Reed Mill Company in Shelton. The Reed Mill focused on milling Western Hemlock and supplying material for the fledgling Rainier Pulp & Paper Company (founded in 1926).

Pulp & paper products

Although logging was primarily about “getting the wood,” pulp and paper products emerged as important industries to Mason County. Further advances in research in 1931 by the scientist of Rainier and DuPont discovered methods of taking the cellulose from Western Hemlocks and converting it into a fiber which could be formed into a wood-based plastic known as cellophane and could be spun into the revolutionary new fabric Rayon. Although the acids used in the early process were environmentally damaging and a major safety concern for workers, this technology was revolutionary. As silk and cotton became scarce during the war, Rayon was important for parachutes, clothing, and bandages.

Rainier called this pulp material “Rayonier,” combining Rayon and Mount Rainier (visible from their plant in Shelton), soon after this they renamed their business Rayonier. Nitrocellulose (or guncotton) used for explosives, propellants, and rockets was also developed by Rayonier from wood cellulose and was instrumental to the war effort. In 1943 alone they produced over 100,000 tonnes.

Their efforts to supply the allied nations with this material earned them a 48-star flag from the federal government. Rebranding began in the 1940s which saw reforested timber leases as “crops,”,to be harvested by future generations. Now pulp and cellulose products were processed into a huge companion industry.

Logging was no longer a one-shot extractive process and trees used for pulp and cellulose products did not have to be tightgrained old growth lumber.

Keep Washington Green

However, these crops faced an ancient threat. Throughout the Pacific Northwest, this timber history has been dogged by the flickering presence of forest fires. The fires of 1847 and 1902 were devastating years. The 1902 fires destroyed logging camps, sawmills, railcars, and many homes in Mason County.

The rest of Western Washington and Oregon did not fare so well in 1902 – with many lives lost. Fire was not only a threat to homes, but it was also a threat to livelihoods as they ravaged stands of trees. In response to the devastating Tillamook fires of the 1930s, Washington Governor Clarence D. Martin campaigned for citizen participation in stopping forest fires before they start.

Governor Martin, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, and others developed the Keep Washington Green Association in 1940 – a model for fire prevention that was later adopted by other states.

Youth groups were an extremely popular part of this association. The Junior Forest Wardens run by the American Legion educated about fire prevention and reforestation techniques through tree planting. During the late 1940s, forest fire prevention became important for another reason. As the war effort relied upon wood products

1944: Smokey's first appearance on a Forest Fire Prevention campaign poster (smokeybear.com)

for a variety of purpose, the possibility of an enemy started forest fire could have paramount effect. The US Forest Service teamed up with the Ad Council to educate the public about forest fires and August 9, 1944, the first Smokey the Bear ad was run. The tagline “Only you can prevent forest fires” wasn’t developed for a few more years, but Smokey was an instant and lasting success.

An era of change

The first Forest Festival was held in May of 1945. As the forestry industry branched off into rebranding cut blocks into crops and board feet in terms of cellulose products, a celebration of timber and the future of the second growth was held, Mason County Forest Festival.

Mason County Forest Festival Forest Festival promoted fire protection and regeneration of the forests. In October of 1946, the Forest Festival was formally incorporated as a non-profit with the specific focus of: “the development of a public consciousness of the need for forest fire prevention and an appreciation of the growing forests of Washington.” The original sponsors included Simpson, the Shelton Chamber of Commerce, the US Forest Service, and Rayonier.

In many ways these projections have not come true as the timber industry has lost its economic relevance to the majority of Mason County citizens. The forest is now an important resource for tourism and recreation. The legacy of the lumbering past however, is still felt when you notice the street signs in downtown Shelton: Pine, Alder, Cedar, Grove, Poplar, Oak, Hazel, Walnut, Hemlock and West Birch Street to name a few. Or when you pass Tollie on Railroad with her car piled high with logs. Stop in at the Post Office and view the original 1940 New Deal mural of a oxen team hauling logs on a “Skid Row” by Richard Haines. When you and your family attend the living event that is the Forest Festival, reflect on the legacy. Cheer on Paul Bunyan and Babe and salute the Court as they pass by in the parade. Forestry is an ever-present part of Shelton and Mason County and its history is worth remembering and celebrating.