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 praise for Company Towns
Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest is a fine source of information
about daily life in the days of early industrial towns of the region.
Western Folklore

This amply illustrated local history is entertaining and readable.

Harvard Business History Review

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Carefully researched. . . One actually wonders why so little has been said

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about the development of company towns as part of the economic growth
of the [Pacific Northwest] region. Economic History Services

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Carlson has put together an entertaining and insightful portrait of these long-

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gone communities that played such an important role in the development
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of the Pacific Northwest. Its well worth reading.Washington State
Grange News
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This remarkable survey of life in the company towns of the Pacific Northwest
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and their significance to the economy of the region makes an important

contribution to the social history of the West. Here Carlson identifies over
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a hundred full-blown company-owned towns, where, in most cases, the com-

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pany provided all the housing, stores, schools, recreational facilities, law
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enforcement, and even ministers. Her well-written story reveals paternalism

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at both its best and its worst.James B. Allen, author of The Company
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Town in the American West

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 COMPANY TOWNS
of the Pacific Northwest

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linda carlson
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With a new preface
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university of washington press

Seattle and London

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 Copyright 2003, 2017 by Linda Carlson
Revised edition, 2017
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Design by Pamela Canell
21 20 19 18 175 4 3 2 1

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

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transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval

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system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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University of Washington Press
www.washington.edu/uwpressG
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the first edition as follows:

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Carlson, Linda.
Company towns of the Pacific Northwest / Linda Carlson.
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p.cm.
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Includes bibliographical references and index.

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isbn 978-0-295-98332-5 (acid-free paper)

1. Company townsPacific StatesHistory.
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2. City and town lifePacific StatesHistory.

3. Pacific StatesSocial conditions.
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4. Pacific StatesEconomic conditions.

5. Pacific StatesHistory, Local.
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6. Company townsNorthwest, PacificHistory.

7. Northwest, PacificHistory, Local.
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I.Title.
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f851.c2772003307.76'7'09795dc212003046766
Revised edition isbn 978-0-295-74290-8 (hardcover), isbn 978-0-295-74291-5 (pbk)

The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.481984.

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 contents

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prefacevii

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acknowledgmentsix
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1/When the Boss Built the Town 3

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2/Bunkhouses, Tent Houses, and Silk Stocking Row 14

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3/Who Lived in Company Towns? 36

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4/When the Dinner Bell Clanged 50

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5/Education in the Company Town 56

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6/Religion in the Company Town 70

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7/Baseball, Bowling, Bands, and Bridge Tournaments 79

8/The Importance of the Company Store 101

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 9/Forty Miles from Nowhere 115

10/Getting the News in Company Towns 136

11/When the Dead Whistle Blew 146

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12/Depression and World Wars 159

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13/FameEven If Fleeting 175

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14/The Paternalistic Company Town Boss 187

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15/When the Town Shut Down 199
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16/The Bottom Line 208

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gazetteer213
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notes243
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bibliography267
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index275
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 preface

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w h e n i b e g a n r e s e a r c h i n g company towns and work camps
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almost twenty years ago, I was fascinated by how people had lived in com-
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munities that were almost always tiny, usually remote, and often isolated
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for weeks at a time by bad weather. The people I interviewed and the
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townsites I visited gave me valuable insights and complemented what I

gleaned from oral and corporate histories, contemporary newspaper
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accounts, museum collections, maps, site plans, photos, and census reports.
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What has been both satisfying and heartwarming are the comments
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from those who lived in the towns or read the original edition of this book.
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Many have expressed gratitude that the lifestyle they had experienced or
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heard about has been documentedand documented with what they

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considered accuracy. It was a relief, some commented, to know that not

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all company towns were as unpleasant as the often-maligned Appalachian

coal-mining villages. Still others wrote with thanks that their towns, those
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built in the Northwest, had finally been recognized.

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Besides speaking in some of the towns that survive and at reunions of

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people who once lived in employer-owned communities, I have presented

at bookstores, libraries, and historical societies and, for several years, as a
member of the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau. Almost without
exception, someone in each audience had a story to share: the person born
in the power-plant town who exclaimed, Yes, as I described the status
levels of different positions, and another who provided a tour of the Seattle

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 Preface

City Light house where she had lived six decades before. Among the many
I met: The couple who bought and moved the superintendents house when
Weyerhaeuser razed Vail. The woman who saw her mother in the historical
Fairfax school photo. The man who invited me to walk the Casland site
with him and his schoolmates from the 1930s. The forester who said to call
his cousin, who provided dozens of photos taken by her grandfather,
founder of Kerriston and Neverstill. The walking-tour guide who each sum-
mer describes the miners houses that once stepped up the hill at Holden.

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The minister who recalled his midweek drives from Kelso to Grisdale to
conduct services. The people who remembered fathers or uncles who had

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spent summers in logging operations or a copper mine, or grandmothers
who had cooked in sawmill mess halls. Some told of tragedies: children

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drowned in mill ponds and rivers, deaths in avalanches and fires, victims

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of polio and heart attacks. But most of those I met were both realistic about
the role that company towns played in their lives and anxious to share their
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memories. Some undoubtedly agreed with the elderly woman who declared
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that now, when friends questioned her childhood tales, she handed them
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her copy of the book and said, See? It really happened.

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My only regret is that I cannot include all of their stories in the pages that
follow. Perhaps some of you reading this edition will have even more memo-
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ries and memorabilia to share, and together we will have an opportunity to

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further document a way of life that is too important to be forgotten.

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Linda Carlson
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Sequim, Washington
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Autumn 2017
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 acknowledgments

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m a n y o f t h e p e o p l e who lived in company towns and labor camps
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shared their memories, helping create a sense of what life was like in these
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unique communities during the twentieth century. Curators, archivists,
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public affairs directors, and museum staff have also provided invaluable
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help. Without the following, it would have been impossible to understand

how daily life in company towns comparedand contrastedto how other
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Americans lived during the same period: Mary Daheim (Alpine); Kate Krafft
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(Black Diamond); Marian Thompson Arlin, Roger Kiers, Ron and Mary
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Young McDivitt, Dave Parker, Marie Ruby, and Jack Young (Cedar Falls
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and the Cedar River watershed towns); Deanna Ammons (Clear Lake);
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Isabelle Fletcher Anderson, Mary Gilchrist Ernst, Charles Hale, Gary

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Poole, Art Sherman, and Joan Lockhart Snider (Gilchrist); Patti Case, Lou
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and Ann Messmer, and Peter Replinger (Grisdale); H.A. (Andy) Solberg
and Michael D. Sullivan (Headquarters); Sandy Wigbers Adam, John Bley,
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Mike Brogan, Brenda Getty Clark, Betty Bickford Christianson, Gayle

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Rodgers Davidson, Elbert Hubbard, Sr., Linda Powell Jensen, Wilma

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Johnson, Mary Ellen Field Lacy, Joye Hamm Malmstrom, Jim Marr, the
family of Larry Penberthy, Bill Phillips, Elmer Smith, Marge Haddon
Stanseld, Patty Haddon Tappan, Vivien Weaver, Janet Adams Westom,
and Harriet Wilbour (Holden); Marilyn Garcia, Gene Grant, and Max
Woods (Kinzua); Louise Schmidt Robertson (Klickitat); Myrtle Beckwith
Alexander and Florence Beckwith Pistilli (Kosmos); Steve Willis (McCleary);

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 Acknowledgments

Jack Coyner, John Hartman, and Erika Kulhman (Potlatch, Idaho); Ruth
Redden Cole and Lee Maker (Shevlin); Megan Moholt and Frank W.
Telewski (Vail); Donald Denno, Stacey Graham, and John Hefey (Valsetz);
and Ted Rakoski (Whites). For information on railroads, I am indebted to
John Phillips and Peter Replinger. For his enthusiastic assistance with pho
tographs, special thanks to Daniel Kerlee.
The following also provided material of particular value: Washington
State Historical Society; Washington State Library; Washington State

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Regional Archives, Bellevue and Ellensburg; Tacoma Public Librarys
Northwest Room and Special Collections; University of Washington

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Libraries, including Special Collections and Forest Resources; Forest
History Society; Mason County Historical Society; McCleary Museum and

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the McCleary branch, Timberland Regional Library; Seattle Public Library;

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Seattle Public Utilities, Cedar River Watershed Education Center; Diocese
of Olympia, the Episcopal Church in Western Washington; Synod of
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Alaska Northwest, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); the Milwaukee Road
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Collection of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Public Library; Deschutes County
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Historical Society; Polk County Historical Society; and the Potlatch, Idaho,
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Historical Society.
A project of this scope also requires the continuing support and dis
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cerning eyes of a publisher, and for that, my appreciation to Pat Soden and
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other staff members at the University of Washington Press.

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For all the friends who encouraged me, even when the revising and foot
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noting and verifying were daunting, and for my husband and children, who
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claim they cannot remember when I wasnt writing a book, my thanks for
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your patience and forbearance.

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Finally, for my parents and late grandparents, whom I remember stand-

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ing on the porch at their lakeside cabin, watching the plume of smoke in
the nearby hills and saying, Theyre working at Clay City today, thank
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you for that childhood introduction to company towns.

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