Bygone Times Created From Timber

by Philip Gordon

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.

In Hoquiam's logging town history no other family was as rich and as influential as the Polson Family, led by the venerable Alex Polson; their operations spanned dozens of logging and construction camps all over the Grays Harbor area, they owned and operated two sawmills, a large shingle mill and two stately mansions one of which still stands today as a museum and a national heritage site. The Polson operations produce 300 million feet of lumber annually. The family settled in Hoquiam in 1882.

The Polson's solidified their control of the Grays Harbor Logging industry when in just 10 years time, the Lytle's out of necessity or the smell of more profits and greatness merged with Alex Polson's interest and in the same manner another big company the Merill and Ring Corporation was also taken into the fold, resulting in the powerful industrial giant that it was at that time and era the Polson Logging Company.

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.

Logging is Hoquiam's history and heritage and will continue to be in the near future. It is what gives the residents of Hoquiam their affable character and their love for tenacity and perseverance it is a place that will always be hungry for wood.