Longest running sawmill in the world.

[Sam Talley]

                                                        A COMPANY TOWN (lock, stock and graveyard)

Port Gamble sits near the Entrance of Hood Canal in NW Washington. The entire town is National Historic Landmark. In the mid-1800s industrialist determined that the great expansion of the west, especially California and the rest of the Pacific Coast, was going to require large quantities of lumber for building. The Port Gamble sawmill was built and soon owned by Wm. Talbot and Andrew Pope.  In 1853 it would become the Pope and Talbot Sawmill which would employ up to 1,000 people. The Company built employee housing, a general store, church, theater, professional offices, a mansion for the manager and a graveyard. The graveyard’s earliest resident was killed by British Columbia Indians on Gamble Bay in 1856. EVERYTHING was Company owned.

This longest running sawmill in the world closed in 1995 after 142 years of operation. At the end, with timber becoming scarce, the mill had only 71 employees. The town remains as a big museum. All the houses remain as built more than 100 yrs ago. At one time there were many ‘company owned’ towns in the United States. Today there are but a few. If you get a chance visit this beautifully tranquil place. You’ll never forget its historical significance.

[Dave McGowan]

Love these types of places and I'd love to see thise one. Perhaps someday.

[anthony martin]

  Sam,

     That's a really handsome building.Do you happen to know what year it was built?

[Sue Cauhape]

The Women Writing the West held their yearly conference in Lynnwood, WA in October and some folks took a tour of Port Gamble, which is featured in an article in the upcoming Winter issue of our newsletter (my first as new editor). It sounds like a beautiful place to visit. The houses are freshly painted and look as though they've just been built.

[Sam Talley]

To Anthony This is the inside view of the general store.The store was established in 1853. It moved to its present location in 1916. Some years ago I met a guy who  had the most extensice sea shell collection in the world displayed here. I think the store has now been turned into a restraunt, but kept it original appearance.

[Murray A. Gewirtz]

I know this is going to sound crazy, but it reminds me somewhat of macy's flagship store on 34th St. in NYC.

[Gay Mathis]

http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/66000746.pdf

"Pig Alley"

One of the amusing incidents of life at Port Gamble in the early days was that someone imported some pigs which were allowed to run loose and fed on scraps thrown out of the window of the cookhouse which stood on the edge of the beach. In time, these pigs became very numerous and seemed to learn that when the mill whistle blew it was feeding time and immediately rushed down the alley to the cookhouse in such large droves that it was all one's life was worth to attempt to walk in the alley at the same time. The alley has become known as pig alley.

[Sam Talley]

I've never been to Macy's there, but I can gaurentee one thing: no elevators or escalators in this store. They had everything else from soup to nuts.