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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1885)
THE WEST SHORE. 72 sane Asylum. Stailacoom contains two flouring mills, browory, four stores, two hotttls, three saloons and a num lxr of shops. A good diHtrict school and Catholic, Meth ods mid rrml lui'Iuu chufcliw are located thora Stages run daily to Lake View, on the Northern Pacific, five mill distant, and numerous steamers plying on the Sound visit the port Much beer, flour and wool are shipped. Tho chief natural resources of the county, besides the various branches of agriculture, are timber, coal, lime stone and building stone, while the adjacent waters are filled with valuable food fishes. That great forest of timber, chiefly giant fir, which clothes the side of the Cascade Mountains and bordors Fugnt Sound is to be found in Pierce as woll as other couutios of this region. At Taooma are located a nuinlxr of saw mills, shingle mills, pinning milla, sash and door factory, furniture fac tory and other establishments for utilizing this wealth of tiinlxT. Other saw mills are located at various points in tho county. Besides supplying tho home demand, lum lr baa Imon 8hipHd by those mills (one of which cut 50,000,000 foot during 1884) to San Francisco and Aus tralia, Chile, Sandwich Islands, China and othor foreign porta. When the Cascades Division of tho Northern Pacific is completed across tho mountains from Eastern Washington to Taooma, there will 1h a now and growing market opined to the mills of this region. One of the most itnortant industries is coal mining Tha nl measures tributary to Tacoma embrace an area estimated at fifty miles long from north to south, and Avfj.ii.titw fv.t... II. a t 1 ii r w ' H iiwmth iiiuiu oi mo uiscauo Moun tains U tho valleys liordoring on Pnget Sound Those now biting worked lio around Wilkeson, Carbonado and South Trains on tho Puyallup River, and are reached by tho Cascades Division of tho Northern Pacific. This road was oonslrncUid as far as tho initios several years ago, ami will form a xrtion of tho main line when com plota.1 a year hence, Tho combined product of these nunc in ihm, nil or which was shipped from Tacoma. Mimiaiing me price at M por ton, the t-tal valuo of tho output was Ki72,ir,0. Tho increase over tho product of 1H82 was 111.815 tons. Tim output in 1881 was 200,000 tons, valued at 1800 000 Of 'l"y i.a8 tons camo from tho mines at Car bonad., where tho pay mil average fJO.000 ior month Tho gniat bulk of this company's shipments to San Fran ciS tho chief market, have boon made by tho splendid : ,; ""'B uier vessels are char ternd for U,o pur,Mo. ArrangemenU have boon made Tor additional kmnago tho urosont vnr n. :.....: king U largely increase tho production. Tho extensive . , ww mm wwre M employe,! and so much i. mid for traimortlil lute, gmt soun of pu.Hty fr lis ' U T.ma, tho headquarter. ,,, . 1 uUi.,k for lUvery promining. J LL'liL,!! oompa. o area bie now working are concerned, and II.. ,...... prowinc to be largely Wrwwed bv l. i . M'-cU '" '"I""" 'ill b. mi, .1 no day. Enormous coal bunkers nave Deen erected on tne water front at Tacoma for storing coal and facilitating the loading of vessels. Stone coking ovens are being constructed at Wilkeson for the manufacture of coke, of which the coal at that point produces an excellent quality. On tha railroad, fifteen miles from Tacoma, are the kilns where the well-known Tacoma Lime is made. The limestone is of that peculiar formation known as "corral line." The annual output is 25,000 barrels, and appear ances indicate that the supply will last for fifty years at this rate. Besides tho large home demand, this lime finds a market in Oregon, British Columbia and along the line of the Northern Pacific as far as Montana. Building stone is another product of the Wilkeson region. Practically inexhaustible quarries of sandstone of great beauty and durability are found there. St. Luke's Me morial Church in Taooma was constructed wholly of this material, which gives no indications of disintegration from exposure to the elements. Large deposits of mag netic iron ore and grey and black hematite are found east of the coal fields. No effort has been made to develop these deposits, but since they exist in such close proxim ity to large and producing coal mines, there is no doubt that this natural wealth will ere long be utilized. The question of establishing large iron works in or near Tacoma has received attention from English capitalists, but no dofinite conclusion has been reached. It is only a matter of time when this company, or some other, will develop these iron deposits. In the vicinity of Tacoma, and on several of the islands contiguous to the mainland, are large areas of splendid potter's clay. A large quan tity of machine-made brick are turned out by nine differ ent yards. Of these fully 6,000,000 went into buildings in Tacoma last year, while large quantities were sent to othor markets. It is the expectation that a pottery will be established the present year on one of these yards within the city limits. Tacoma is the county seat and the seaport to which all this region is tributary. Not simply that, but it is the terminus of the Northern Pacifio, the point where that great transcontinental line reaches the deep water of the Pacific. Here can come the varied products of the Inland Empire and the greater portion of Western Wash ington for shipment, and from here those same regions, soon to bo wealthy and populous, can draw their supplies. Here, too, can come the commerce of Asia and the Pacifio for transmission across the continent, while to the ware house here the railroad can bring the innumerable arti cles sent from the East to be distributed throughout the .Northwest region. Such is Tacoma, by virtue of her osition on the most accessible harbor on the Sound, by n situation at the actual and official terminus of the railroad and by the design of her founders. . i coraraittoe of gentlemen who had been dele gated to select the most suitable harbor on Puget Sound n.li , IK,int-ne Mch should possess the most natura advantages for a seaport and have on its banks a Hri,, ge Oomnnaal city as must necessarily iwmg np-rqwrtod that they had decided upon Com-