| Show MILLIONS IN LUMBER TACOMA WASH may 18 1893 1 I saw a cedar stump the other day on which a crowd of seventy two people stood and sat while a photograph was taken of them it was so large that a cottage could have been built upon it and the height of the tree before it was cut I 1 am told was teet feet the greatest industry of this puget sound region is its timber the trees here turn out logs from to feet in length and washington has now at the th e chicago exhibition a four feet square which is feet long from a tree cut here the other day six big saw logs were taken each thirty feet long and the tree was five feet in diameter at the base and its first branch started out leet feet above the ground A farmer not far from tacoma lived in a hollow cedar tree while clearing his homestead the cavity was twenty two feet in diameter or as big as a large parlor his ceiling was forty feet above the ground and a knot hole just below this formed his chimney he put in a floor eight eig ht feet above the earth and on this he built a stone fireplace with a stick and clay chimney under the floor he kept his horse and cow and he lived on the second story of the tree hole the best ship timber of the world comes from washington and masts and spars are sent from here to australia china and other parts of europe asia asa and africa the timber resources are practically ally unlimited and I 1 am told that there are over three hundred billion feet oi of standing timber in this state at the present time a little more than one billion feet is is being cut every year and at this rate there is enough left for three centuries to come some of the largest sawmills in the world are located near seattle and tacoma and more than two million feet of timber are now cut every day ROOFS WORLD during my stay in minneapolis I 1 was told that the red cedar shingles of washington were fast driving the pine apt of the market and I 1 learn he here that shingles are being shipped I 1 1 I 1 in in last quantities tip n all oyer the an d states I 1 tates I 1 W was s shown ho wn inthe seattle fost abst gancer ce I 1 office a cedar shingle which had been een on a root forty years aud which was still in good condition and I 1 sa saw yesterday a photo photograph raph of a fir tree the marks upon which snow show it to be mote than years old and in the roots of this tree was fastened a cedar log which must have been lying on the grou ground d when the first sapling grew over it we the year old cedar log was examined and found to bi be perfectly sound although it has reached this vast age I 1 talked last night with mr shelby the general manager of the great northern railroad on the pacific coast about the shingle trade of this section he tells me that it is growing rapidly and thit he expects to be able to put cedar shin agles down jn in new york ohio ao anid indiana at about the same rate as pine shingles he predicts that within wi thina a few years the pine ine shingle will prad cally go out I 1 of pr the market be teus me that two billion shingles wilt will he be turned out from this region this year said he there is no comparison between the two products A roof of pipe shi nelea has to be replaced every five five or six years while one of cedar is good for forty or fifty years at the present price and rates of transportation we can ship shingles from here t to 0 buffalo so that for thirty dollars a man can obtain enough puget sound shingles to covers ten room house and the result is that the he lumber dealers of the east are giving up pine and taking to cedar it would surprise you to know how much traffic there is in this form of lumber it will take cars to carry the shingles which washington will send to the east this year and when you remember that the first car load of these shingles that was ever shipped to chicado went east in 1887 you will see how great the growth has been il I 1 expect to see this trade rapidly increase and within two years three quarters of the entire production of shingles in the united states will go out from the stale of washington we now use about of shingles in this country every year and the day will oon come when the whole of the union will be roofed with washington cedar I 1 can you give me some idea of the extent of the lumber regions of puget sound I 1 asked we have replied gen shelby nearly as much as all the rest of the united states put together it is a 16 tow W estimate to put it at feit feet or to give a more practical idea ot of it it would take a train ot of cars long enough enough to go nine times around toe tie world worl to carry this lumber already there are men employed in the wood working industries of this state and we spend more than in in wages for lumber workers every year lumber is sent from here to duluth and comes right into competition there in the midst of the pine regions of minnesota and wisconsin we get out a class of logs here that you cannot find anywhere else and the long timbers from forty feet and upward which we send out cannot be found in the eastern states GOV I 1 met the young governor of this state last tight night at the club th seattle and hada chit chat with him about wasu ig its ties gov mcgraw Q ion 9 P land and possibilities pos is one of the brightest young executives 0 the union he is just about forty and he here from years ears of age came maine eight or ten years ago his career rea reads ds like a romance tie ne was the son of a lumberman of maine and his father died while he was ti 11 small his mother married again and his stepfather did not cradle him in the lap ot of luxury the boy had to a large e extent to take care of himself and his bis schooling was confined to about itta months in all one story I 1 heard was that the old man made young mcgraw wear his boots to school they were number and when little mcgraw wore them they caused him bian no end of trouble it was the custom there to make the gicho scholars lars toe the mark there was a chalk line drawn upon the floor which the boys had to toe when they stood up in their classes to recite mcgraw mcgrawsr McG raws s boots were so large that with his toes on afie chalk his body was thrown far back of the line of the rest of the class the teacher could not at first understand it he thought the boy was cutting up and he would go behind and line up the class hitting little mcgraw tor for getting out of the line and then going in in front and scein seeing his feet over the chalk line he wouly would be driven back flying thus between scylla and the of the time HOW MADE A FORTUNE mcgraws mcgrawsr McG raws boyhood was spent in hard work and by the time he was a young man he had saved enough to go into business he failed however and awoke one one morning to find that he had gi 6 wife and family on his hands and only 1142 in his pocket he decided to leave maine and go west saying goodbye good bye to his family he struck out for california and arrived in san francisco with his total assets amounting to only forty two dollars he sent forty dollars of this to his wife and looked about for work the only job he could find was that of street car driver and he held the reins of a bobtailed car for several weeks au all the while looking out for something better one day while driving down kearney street he saw this sign on a bulletin board ac BUY SEATTLE COAL the rhe words stuck to him and he kept abing aying in it over and over and wondering etere where gS seattle eattle was ana and what kind of a place it was he had heard of it before cut ant he could not think where finally n remembered that a man from his region I 1 in n maine had gone to seattle L atte found where the place was and wrote to to him and a week or so later make his for fortune the f came e here to small that time and he F town V was at soon e made acquaintances he got a place on an the police force and proved himself so efficient effifie nt that he was elected sh sheriff ariff me he held the office of sheriff for years then went into the hotel business he had in the meantime brought his family P rz fi from botn maine and was doing well when a 4 fire burned him out and left him again k without a dollar he had studied law however wever while he was sheriff 1 and he hung out his shingle he soon soo p gained gl a practice he invested in various various properties peri ties and made money now he is resident of one of the first banks of beattle eattle and is in independent circumstances he is one of the most popular nieu men in the state and when his name was sprung without any preliminary canvassing at the last lait state convention he was nominated for governor with a hurrah he was elected by a large majon majority y and d though kough he is not a man of political lotical ambition he will be sooner or later later in the united states senate he is one of the shrewdest political managers as well as one of the best business men of this state and it was through his management that squire got his present seat in the united states senate THE EVERGREEN STATE we call washington said gov mcgraw the evergreen state and we have no doubt but that it is t to be one of the greatest states in the union we are rapidly y increasing in population and the emigrants follow close on the heels of the government surveyors the state is not all surveyed as yet and is rapidly being taken up and we have now more than people we expect to be the pennsylvania ohio and new york of the west the population of puget sound will be the greatest of any part of our pacific coast right here in seattle we will have a town as great as san francisco and puget sound will I 1 am convinced eventually be a great shipping center for asiatic trade we have a fresh water lake here which with two to four miles of canal would be accessible to ocean vessels and along puget sound there are magnificent harbors we are miles near nearer e r shanghai than san francisco and we except eventually to nave have the me DUIK 01 the chinese trade the trade of china amounts to per year and now largely belongs to great britan it steadily increases and it is safe to say that at no very distant date the trade of china and japan will amount to per year there is no reason why america should not have its share of it there is a vast trade between china and russia and between man choloria and european russia there is s caravan line ot of camels and more than horses every year there is is no reason why a large dart of the shipments carried in this way should not be sent over here to siberia and china and I 1 expect to see the time when our asiatic trade will be one of the most important features of our commerce we are so loc located abed that we will the great section for this trade and our mines and lumber are such that we can make anything that the world wants we have vast coal fields and greit great beds of iron and the prospect now is that we have the greatest gold and silver fields 0 of f the world 11 tell me something about this governor said I 1 THE MONTE CRISTO GOLD MINES 1 I refer sai said d gov mcgraw to the monte cristo gold mines these are owned by a small syndicate of rich ca capi I 1 including such men as jot john rockefeller colgate hoyt and mr colby and a railroad is now being built from here to them at a cost of the mines lie about fifty miles of seattle they are surrounded by the most rugged of mountains and they run in and out of great gorges the ore i is found in large veins and some of it assays essays fifty dollars of gold and seventy five dollars of silver to the ton and upward there are a number nu aber of mines in in this region but the most of them belong to this syndicate it will take a fortune to get the ore out but it wi will 11 probably pay a dozen fortunes as soon asche roid road is finished and the veins are V r opened up how hovi was the gold discovered abed iti ils first discovery was madi made with a telescope replied gov mcgraw McGrA LW some pros prospectors actors saw the gold gleaming out of the te side of the mountain tain four miles away from where they stood they worked their way up to it and found that a greit great slide of theearta the earth had left bare this great vein of gold the amount in sight I 1 am told is worth millions and one or of the ledges exposed may be traced a distance ot of feet up the mountain side bottom ot of the gorge and the width of this ledge is from ten to forty feet the gold seems to run through the mountain and it is almost altogether in ledges there are no placer mines and no nuggets to be lound in the streams A town is now being built at the m mines dineh and by the middle of summer we will will have there one of the liveliest mining camps in the world the way it will be run however will be more as a great manufacturing industry than a gold camp the character of the mining is such that it will have to be done with the most improved machinery and after the latest and most practical of business methods I 1 find that there is little chance for a 1 poor or man to make money in in mining in washington ashington the country has teen been very thoroughly prospected in the neighborhood of the new gold re regions giong and his only hope of work would be at regular wages in the mines the railroad which the colby hoyt syndicate is now building will take plenty of good workmen there and wages will not be extravagantly high there is more money in the buying of lumber tracts and in investing in hop lands and in the taking up of the still vacant territory of the state A GLANCE AT SPOKANE I 1 have now spent two weeks traveling through h the state of washington it is of of the union one 0 the finest states and promises to be one of the most prosperous the population is made up of eastern men and it is full of enterprise fire and vinegar it seems to me now io to be on the verge of a boom it is recovering from its temporary st stagnation and its cities are growing very last my first stop was ma made e at metropolis of the eastern part of the state and the biggest city between the pacific arid and st paul spokane has 1 people and it is practically only four u years old it was burned to the ground gars four on years ago but it has now as fine business blocks as you will find anywhere in the country and its bank clearances show that it does as much business in proportion to its size as any town in the union it has one of the finest waterfalls in the world and its electric car lines electric lights and a great part of the electric power of the city co comes mes from these great falls the city now us uses es about thirty five hundred horse power from the spokane river and I 1 am told that the falls give a horsepower of more than thirty thousand spokane is almost entirely populated by new england people and families from ohio and the north middle states it is in the center of an agricultural country and it will continue to grow TACOMA AND ITS PROSPECTS one of the richest cities of the united states is tacoma which is at the head of navigation on puget sound and which promises to be one of the greatest cities of the country the town is only about six years ars old but it has a population of about and is assessed at its ts banks have a capital of and its car shops pay out in wages every month athas it has fifty miles of electric car lines and it is building more it is the terminus of t the e northern pacific railroad and it has now a line of steamships to china and japan it is one of the great lumber centers as well as one of the great shipping ports of the northwest and it sent out last year more than bushels ot of wheat to foreign markets it has a monthly pay roll of nearly TACOMA millionaires it has a large number of elevators and factories tacoma is one of the prettiest cities of the northwest it has more millionaires to the block than any other town in the coun country and its rich men have come to stay they have built big houses and it is a city of homes the people of the east cannot |
