future partner, James J. Hill. The two decided that their futures were in the Pacific Northwest. Weyerhaeuser founded the Sound Lumber Company in 1899. Then, in 1900, he negotiated one of the largest land transactions in American history: 900,000 acres of timber from the Northern Pacific Railroad’s land grants at six dollars an acre, “a price estimated then as about ten cents a thousand feet for the wood.”13 That was the beginning; Weyerhaeuser then organized the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company and proceeded to build the new company’s first mill: Mill B in Everett. Then the largest in the world, it produced an amazing 70 million board feet in 1912.
The Weyerhaeuser Company was initially based in Tacoma, then in the suburb of Federal Way, now part of Seattle. The company is one of the largest owners of timberland in the world. It is an international conglomerate; its holdings include seven million acres of land in the United States, much of it in Washington where the “primeval” forests it once logged have been reduced to tree farms, the trees a “crop” on a thirty-year rotation. Weyerhaeuser manager George S. Long apparently coined the term “tree farm” in 1908 while proclaiming that “timber is a crop.”14 Weyerhaeuser also retains logging rights to 35 million acres of land in Canada. Now diversified, it leaves behind old mills and deforestation—in addition to deadly contaminants including heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), PCBs, phenols and dioxins.
From the start, booms and busts plagued the timber industry. The Northern Pacific’s arrival in Tacoma in 1893 did not deliver on its promises. The Midwestern markets were still too many miles away. Nevertheless, the railroads brought population growth, the development of new towns, and the expansion of cities. In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake and fire temporarily increased demand for timber, and 1912 to 1913 were “good” years but short-lived. The life span of the smallest timber firms was brief; few weathered the hard times. The larger companies grew at the expense of struggling rivals, and the result was an industry dominated by a handful of giant corporations, with Weyerhaeuser, “The Trust,” at the top of the heap.
THERE WERE TENS OF THOUSANDS of loggers and mill workers in the Pacific Northwest on the eve of war, the large majority working in the forests of western Washington. They worked ten-hour days, often more, in logging camps and mills. IWW writers insisted that in addition to working loggers “there were thousands of their fellow workers vainly seeking work,” successful only when “those employed happened to lose their jobs.” Hence unemployment plagued the industry, in good times and bad. Their overlords, the lumbermen, “were as ruthless and competitive” as any New York City garment manufacturer. They created their own sweatshops in dreary and brutal camps, isolated from the towns, that in any case offered little more than saloons and brothels. In the woods, labor was the chief production cost; competition pressed wages downward and working conditions with them.15
The timber industry initially relied on human muscle power, the ax, and the hand-held saw. There was, however, a slow and steady development of new technologies, including steel cables and the Dolbeer steam donkey, invented by a California lumberman, which greatly increased productivity but was disastrous for the forests. Cable hauling meant extreme clearcutting; it broke young trees and tore up seedlings, leading to logging “deserts.” The method of “high-lead” yarding, developed somewhat later, lifted the logs rather than dragging them. However, the giant logs, now airborne, brought new dangers. Then the railroads came—short lines through rugged terrain connecting the difficult-to-reach interior to the mills. The promise of technology was always double-edged. For the forest, new techniques spelled new horrors. The loggers’ task was to take down every tree within reach. The slash was burned. The flames consumed limbs, bark, other trees, undergrowth, birds and animals, the ferns and flowers, everything that could not escape. Entire ecosystems were destroyed, leaving ridges charred and streams unrecognizable.
Workers in groups felled the trees. It might take a week for a team of six to bring down one very large tree. The use of black powder and dynamite was commonplace. The impact of the fall could make a tree shatter, so a blanket of brush and branches was woven to soften the fall. The thick bark also protected the fallen tree. Once a tree was down, the workers cut the huge logs into sections which were hauled to the mills one section at a time, first by oxen, then by steam engines or rail and much later by tractors and trucks.
Conditions were dangerous in the hills and equally brutal in the mills. There men and boys worked on and among giant saws, with their deafening noise and in air that seemed more sawdust than nitrogen and oxygen. Asthma was as common as missing limbs. In camp or mill, the specter of terrifying accidents and gruesome injuries haunted the workers, and death by saws, cables, falling trees made logging and lumber work five times more lethal than in any other sector of Washington industry.16 Workers were forced to sign agreements absolving their employers of responsibility; the injured were reported to be victims of accidents or their own misstep. When the lumbermen made agreements with the closest hospitals, they deducted costs from the loggers’ paychecks.17
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