Stella Wenstob| contributor From Alaska to Northern California, logging towns are an iconic part of the Pacific Northwest. Mill towns, log sorts, boom towns and even the notorious skid row all have their roots in this historical legacy. With Mason County’s seventy-seventh 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 along Hammersley Inlet 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 (pun intended).
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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
