Overview

Weyerhaeuser's Mill B, in operation by 1915, became a key lumber processing facility for the timber giant and carried the distinction of being the first all-electrically-powered lumber mill in the US. Mill B served as the production facility for lumber orders traveling back to the East Coast by ship and rail. A major employer, the opening of Mill B immediately preceded efforts by the radical union, the International Workers of the World (IWW), to organize labor systematically in Everett. These efforts were rebuffed by the city's very conservative mill owners and their police enforcers. Previous incidents of police brutality to IWW members seeking to recruit workers resulted in a show of force from the union by late 1916. Two ships carrying IWW members and sympathizers left Seattle for Everett on 11/05/1916, with the union seeking to test the "free speech" limits of Everett's authorities. As it turned out, their limits were extreme, as police intercepted the boats at the docks and gunfire was exchanged. Two sheriff's deputies were killed along with five IWW members during what became known as the "Everett Massacre."

Building History

As the construction of the Panama Canal drew to its completion, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company planned to increase lumber production to serve interconnected world markets. Historian Norman H. Clark observed about Mill B: "By 1912, the canal seemed a certainty, and it was impossible to deny that it would bring unparalleled prosperity to the Pacific Northwest; United States Senator Wesley Jones said that the opening of the canal would move Everett into 'the greatest period of development it has ever known.' The Weyerhaeuser Company had already made its own unemotional calculations and was preparing to build its Mill B in Everett, an all-electric sawmill which would turn out four hundred thousand feet of lumber in eight hours, a capacity so huge that it would open a new epoch for the entire timber industry." (See Norman H. Clark, Mill Town, [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970], p. 114-115.) Weyerhaeuser continued to grow during the 1910s, by the end of the decade operating 22 processing plants across the US. (See James R. Warren, "Weyerhaeuser Company," HistoryLink.org, accessed 06/19/2015.)

PCAD id: 19632