CHAPTER XXXV

VALUABLE IRON DEPOSITS-EFFORTS AT PROFITABLE DEVELOPMENT-INDIANS FIND

"PLUMBAGO”—PLUMBAGO MINE IS DISCOVERED BY WHITES, THOUGH "THE WIDOW" LEADS EXPLORERS ASTRAY-PETER KIRK'S $5,000,000 COMPANY—

GREAT AMOUNT OF MACHINERY BOUGHT THEN, MYSTERIOUSLY ENOUGH, WHOLE DREAM COLLAPSES-IRON ON THE UPPER SKAGIT-EFFORT TO DEVELOP CHIMACUM BEDS-THE IRONDALE PLANT-MOORE SPENDS GREAT SUMS, BUT ENTERPRISE FAILS.

The development, or attempted development, of no natural resource of Western Washington has been attended by so many discouraging circumstances as has that of iron mining. Promising ledges of ore have been discovered in several places. Expert iron and steel men have pronounced the quality and quantity to be such as would justify development; but it seems that whenever the promoters of iron and steel industries in Western Washington have applied to eastern capitalists for money with which to bring the mines into profitable production, some sort of evil tamanamus has stepped in to deal the project a death blow.

Early day settlers at Seattle were much interested in chunks of a black metallic substance brought to the settlement by the Snoqualmie Indians. The natives used the mineral in painting their faces. None of the settlers knew what it was, but they called it plumbago and decided it worthy of investigation. For many years the Indians refused to guide white people to the mine from which the "plumbago" came; even the friendship existing between A. A. Denny and Pat Kanim was not strong enough to induce the Snoqualmie chieftain to lead his white friend to the source of supply.

In the summer of 1869 Jerry Borst, living on the Snoqualmie Prairie, sent word to Denny that through the influence of his ((Borst's) Indian wife, he had found an Indian woman who would guide them to the "plumbago mines." Visiting Seattle at that time was Edmond T. Coleman, an English artist and mountain climber. An exploring party consisting of Coleman, Denny, Doctor Wheeler and Prof. John Hall, of the University, was organized and July 25th left Seattle for Borst's farm.

At the prairie the party was joined by Borst and the guide-an Indian woman whose frequent marriages had given her the name of "The Widow." She was accompanied by her latest husband, a young man many years her junior. Perhaps through excessive joy over her good fortune in marrying so young and strong a hunter, "The Widow" became confused, led the party into the wilderness of mountains, timber and creeks of the Upper Snoqualmie and became hopelessly lost.

Satisfied that their expedition was a failure the white men were on the point of giving up the search when one of them suggested crossing one of the numerous ridges and exploring the creek flowing down the opposite side. On top of the ridge the men paused for a moment's rest and were studying a mountain on the opposite side of the creek when one of them called attention to the peculiar color of the rocks. The party was soon at the base of a slide down which had tumbled many tons of rock, and the search for the plumbago mines was at an end.

Upon returning to Seattle the explorers said nothing about the discovery. Hall and Wheeler later made several trips to the mines, and although these trips were made to "prospect for silver," other Seattle men learned of the iron mines and filed claims. The Denny Iron Mining Company was organized and samples of the ore were sent East for assay. They showed as high as 71 per cent metallic iron. Great hopes were built on the iron and coal mines; people began speaking of Washington as the Pennsylvania of the West and pictured. it as soon becoming a manufacturing state of great importance.

As a result of all this excitement came Peter Kirk, representing a great English iron manufacturing company. This was in 1886, and Kirk's examination of the mines resulted in a report confirming earlier opinion. After a twoyear study Kirk leased the mines for forty-five years, organized the Moss Bay Iron & Steel Company, Peter Kirk, president; H. A. Noble, treasurer, and W. W. Williams, secretary. The company was capitalized at $5,000,000. It selected a site for a town on the eastern shore of Lake Washington and announced it Iwould there build its ore reduction works and mills.

When the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern was being promoted ore shipments from the Denny mines, it was said, would become one of the road's sources of revenue. The Moss Bay Company failed and its place was taken by the Great Western Steel & Iron Company, L. S. J. Hunt, president; W. W. Williams, secretary; Jacob Furth, treasurer; H. A. Noble and Peter Kirk, mining directors. Orders for large quantities of machinery were placed with eastern manufacturing firms.

August 10, 1891, the Ship King Malcom arrived at Seattle from Maryport, England, carrying a cargo of 2,000 tons of fire brick for the Kirkland blast furnaces. Forty-five carloads of castings, including two blowing engines and plates for blast furnaces and machinery for machine and pattern shops had arrived and were stored along the track of the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern which at that time had not been finished to the site selected for the plant. A sawmill and a number of large brick buildings were erected at Kirkland and then something went wrong. The fire brick and machinery were shipped away; the railroad stopped at North Bend, more than twenty miles from the mines, and the second attempt to build a railroad through Snoqualmie Pass had failed. Grass grew up around the two- and three-story brick building at Kirkland. The Snoqualmie lode remains undeveloped; its ore tests as high as ever and some day, perhaps, it will contribute toward making Washington the "Pennsylvania of the West."

J. J. Conner, of La Conner, while prospecting on the upper Skagit, in 1880, discovered iron ore near Hamilton. Tests were made of the ore, the result being so favorable that Conner experienced no trouble in inducing David Lister, R. F.

Radebaugh, General Sprague and other Tacoma men to join him in the development of the mines. The Tacoma Steel & Iron Company was organized. Two tons of ore were shipped to Philadelphia, the tests being so satisfactory that C. B. Wright agreed to finance the enterprise. Other prospectors located all the unpatented claims in the neighborhood and in doing so cast a cloud upon the title of the Conner holdings. The matter was carried into the courts and brought on a long legal battle. Development was suspended of course.

When the smoke cleared away Conner arranged to sell the mines to Nelson Bennett, but before the deal could be closed Eugene Canfield renewed the fight against the title. Canfield died. By agreement with his administrator Conner cleared his claims of the cloud hanging over them and was ready for another effort at development. D. H. Gilman tried, met financial difficulty and gave it up, and then came Homer H. Swaney, of McKeesport, Penn., and Irondale, Wash.

The beds of bog iron at Chimacum were discovered at a very early date in the development of Jefferson County. They were thought to be inexhaustible. A company was formed, built a small ore reduction plant with a daily capacity of five tons and set out to put Irondale on the industrial map of the world.

The first company was struggling along with the enterprise, accomplishing little, when, about 1880, it attracted the attention of George H. Prescott, one of the owners of the Union Iron Works, San Francisco. Prescott and other California capitalists organized the Puget Sound Iron Company, bought the plant and spent considerable money on improvements. The Chimacum beds failed and several thousand acres of bog iron land on Texada Island, British Columbia, were bought. Expert iron men were brought in from outside the state; about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars were spent and the Irondaie plant attained a daily production of from thirty to thirty-five tons. Its operation did not produce the profit the California men had hoped for and in 1889 they closed it down.

After remaining idle for about twelve years the Irondale plant was sold for $40,000 to the Pacific Steel Company, Homer H. Swaney, president and general manager. Swaney brought to Irondale a wide experience and proceeded to make improvements. A sawmill, docks, warehouses and twenty new residences were built. The old charcoal kilns were replaced with new ones and the ore reduction plant itself was given a complete overhauling. Arrangements were made for the development of the Skagit River mines, some of their ore was used with that from Texada and a very fine quality of castings were manufactured. The battleships Oregon and Nebraska, the cruiser Olympia and many other ships contained castings made at the Irondale plant.

Swaney was making a success of the enterprise when he lost his life in the Clallam wreck of January, 1903. At this time M. J. Carrigan, in charge of the selling end of the business, had orders for more than twenty-five hundred tons of iron on his books. The death of Swaney closed the plant and Carrigan became receiver. The next heard of it was in September, 1906, when, by orders of the court, it was sold to J. A. Moore for $40,000. Moore poured into it large sums of money, but it did not pay, and what remains of the big plant is being covered by the vegetation of undisturbed places.

CHAPTER XXXVI

FIRES OF 1889-INCENDIARISM SUSPECTED IN TACOMA FIRE-BUSINESS DISTRICT OF SEATTLE BURNED JUNE 6TH-TACOMA, OLYMPIA, VICTORIA, PORTLAND AND OTHER TOWNS COME TO SEATTLE'S ASSISTANCE SEATTLE SENDS MONEY TO JOHNSTOWN FLOOD SUFFERERS AND LAYS PLANS TO REBUILD CITY-FIRE A BENEFIT IN DISGUISE OTHER TOWNS BURN-FIRE PROTECTION RECEIVES MUNICIPAL ATTENTION.

The year 1889, in addition to being the year in which Washington laid aside her territorial short dresses to don the more mature habiliment of full grown statehood, is entitled to a prominent place in history as the year of great fires. Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, Roslyn, Ellensburg, Goldendale and Vancouver were the scenes of fires the destructive force of which ranged from the loss of a few buildings, in Tacoma, to the entire business sections in Seattle and Spokane.

In the early part of May several Tacoma residences and business houses were burned. Circumstances indicated incendiarism. Citizens talked of "fire bugs." On the night of the 29th the grocery store of Monty & Gunn was destroyed and brought a call for a meeting in the Chamber of Commerce rooms the next morning. This meeting scarcely was under way when it was proposed to make it a citizens' meeting so that all could take part in the discussion. Some of the old timers wanted a vigilance committee; some thought the fires the work of a crazy man; others attributed them to lax enforcement of the laws and to court leniency. One excited man arose and said that he would kill any "sluzer" found around his house after dark, urged that a vigilance committee be appointed, and closed by saying:

"You may call this vigilance, Christianity or hell! Self preservation is the first law of nature."

Resolutions were adopted, the closing sentence of which contained these words: "And if necessary we will organize a committee for the purpose of discovering the guilty parties and will maintain the same until every lawless person known to be in the city shall be driven out of it or punished to the full extent of the law." A "committee of safety," consisting of twenty-five members, was appointed. That there was foundation for the belief in the existence of fire bugs is shown by the fact that with the organization of the vigilance committee the fires ceased.

At 2:45 P. M. June 6th a workman in a basement carpenter shop in the Pontius Building, First Avenue and Madison Street, Seattle, overturned a glue pot and started the most destructive fire the Northwest ever has known-a fire in which the entire business district of the city, covering about one hundred and twenty acres, was swept out of existence.

All of Seattle's fire equipment soon was at work. From basement to basement the fire had eaten its way along the west side of First Avenue until it had undermined the entire block. Merchants began moving their goods and the whole block soon was a roaring mass.

The intense heat forced the firemen back and the flames crossed the street. Every hose in the city was in use. Gradually the water pressure diminished and then came the disheartening cry, "No more water." Seattle's water supply was exhausted and the city was at the mercy of a merciless enemy.

Smoke drifted from the windows of Frye's Opera House, a four-story brick building on the northeast corner of First Avenue and Marion Street. Blazes appeared on the roof of the Commercial Mill to the westward. Its sheds and piles of lumber furnished fine fuel. Buildings on the eastern side of First Avenue were roaring furnaces and the municipal authorities decided to call upon sister cities for aid. Telegrams were sent to Tacoma, Olympia, Portland and Victoria.

Tacoma was first to respond. A new four-wheeled hose cart and twentyfive men, with Chief Rainey in charge, were loaded on a flat car, a locomotive and caboose were attached and at 4:25 this short train left the "Half Moon yards" for Seattle. Ten minutes later Puyallup was passed and after a stop of a few seconds at Sumner, the engineer started on a run that carried the train to the Seattle station just sixty-three minutes after it had left Tacoma.

The arrival of the Tacoma men was greeted with cheers and they were soon into the thickest of the battle. By this time the fire had spread until it covered the district between Columbia and Spring streets from Second Avenue to the waterfront. The wind was blowing from the north. This, and several vacant lots, enabled the firemen to check the fire in that direction. South of Columbia Street the wind fanned the flames into a roaring furnace that rapidly consumed building after building. An effort to wreck buildings with explosives failed to check the advancing fire wave and at 7 o'clock Chief Rainey sent a call to Tacoma for more of his men. Hose Company No. 2 and a portion of Alert No. 3

responded.

Shortly after this message was sent the Seattle office of the Western Union Telegraph Company went to feed the flames and for several hours the outside world was left to await news from the stricken city. Telegraph operators, taking their instruments with them, went into the woods, cut in on the line and began again to send details of the calamity.

Night came, but it brought little relief to the exhausted people. In Tacoma thousands of people lined the bluff overlooking Commencement Bay and in a half stupefied way gazed at the illuminated sky. And then some one said Seattle would need assistance other than that furnished by the men who had already gone to fight the flames. Her stores and warehouses and bakeries were burned and her people would go hungry if other towns did not come to her relief.

Tacoma suddenly recovered from her horror. Subscription papers were started and so rapidly and willingly did the people subscribe that one paper carried by David Wilson soon contained pledges amounting to more than four thousand dollars. Ten thousand dollars were raised in one hour. Even before this Allen C. Mason had ordered every bakery in the city into his service. Thousands of loaves of bread were being baked. Seattle railway stations were burned,