History Made From Wood
Hoquiam town has a rich and glorious history and all of it built from the lumber of ancient forest that surrounds the entire area of Grays Harbor. Nothing that was planned, started, built or invested in that was not directly connected to or indirectly related to the lumber and shingles industry. From the very moment the first white settlers decided that it was to be their camp in the 1850′s they knew that they were there to stay and stay they did.
If history and faith cannot establish the love and hate affair of Hoquiam then nothing else can, cause at the very beginning even the Native Indians had recognized if not foreseen the future of the area where present day Hoquiam stands. The term or name of the city “hungry for wood” is shared with the river were it stands near and is in the Native American Language a name quite appropriate for what the area will soon become with the arrival of the white settlers.
It was just a matter of time for other people who wanted to cash in on the abundance of commercially viable forest and in just a few years a large number of saw mills were busily processing wood into their hungry jaws, making Hoquiam a good employment center and business opportunity for those who wanted to provide goods and services to the lumber men and their families who continually poured in to work in the mills and in the logging camps. Some men went in with big capital like Robert and Joseph Lytle who set up the Hoquiam Lumber and Shingle Company in 1902. By 1906 the Lytle brothers ran of the world’s largest cedar shingle manufacturing company. A year later the lumber requirements of the then Northern Pacific Railroad Company brought forth the establishment of the Grays Harbor Lumber Company who made it its business to have a steady supply of lumber for its railroad projects.
As rich and powerful were the Lytle brothers and the other companies who were subsidiaries of even bigger companies in other industries, none can match the tenacity and unrelenting growth of Alex Polson and his brothers. In just a few years, the Polson’s controlled if not owned much of the prime real estate and timber interest in Hoquiam and Grays Harbor area, with opulent mansions and thousands of employees to prove that they were the biggest.
In 1891, the Lytle brothers Joseph and Robert joined their interest with the Polson Brothers Logging Company, which 12 years later after joining again with another big player the Merill and Ring Corporation was established as the Polson Logging Company, a true industrial giant of that era.
The lumber barons had it all, but the richness of the lands of Grays Harbor was so vast that there was room for everybody to try and make a profit. More than 300 other small logging and milling operations dotted the Grays harbor and Hoquiam landscape and even hundreds more of different trade and service type concerns were establish to support the thousands of men who needed anything and everything under the sun.
There are so many literature and existing documents that record and preserve the truth about Hoquiam’s logging and lumber past. Anyone can enjoy the wealth of information not only about the interesting lives of the lumber barons with all their wealth and power, but also, fortunately for us, we can also take a peek into the lives of the countless lumberjacks and mill men who truly had lumber in their blood. A proud heritage it is for the town of Hoquiam.
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