BELLINGHAM AND EVERETT
CHAPTER XV.
Bellingham and Everett.
New Whatcom, on Bellingham Bay, with Fairhaven, make practically one city, with their immense shingle and saw-mills in continuous operation. They have since been combined and incorporated as the City of Bellingham.
There are large salmon canneries here, as the fisheries of Puget Sound is an extensive and important industry.
The scenery is gorgeous on Puget Sound, with its many islands and Mt. Baker, having an elevation of 10,827 feet for a background.
Anacortes has important fishing industries. Sedro Woolley has large saw and shingle mills, and as I walked up and down the streets, the town presented to me every evidence of industry. Near here are the coal mines of Cokedale. Hamilton is a lumbering town. Mt. Vernon, La Conner and Stanwood are lumbering towns, and the great oat producing section. At Arlington, Darrington and Marysville, I still found lumbering industries.
I found a great improvement at Everett, a few years ago it was a small town; now it is a metropolitan city, with its numerous thriving enterprises. As I stood on the balcony of Hotel Monte Cristo, and gazed over Gardner Bay on Whidby Island, I exclaimed, "Nature cannot show me more grandeur than this," and combined with the hand of man the vessels busily ply back and forth upon its broad expansive waters, over the bay and sound to the Pacific Ocean.
The bay front presents a busy appearance from the saw and shingle mills, where vessels are constantly loading for foreign ports.
There is a large smelter at the point of land between Gardner Bay and the mouth of the Snohomish river, which treats the ores of the Monte Cristo and Silverton mines, and large quantities of custom ores are shipped here for treatment. I made a visit to the smelter and saw the red liquid ore, as it flowed in the large boiling pots, and was then hauled away to cool; and the bright silvery ore, as it flowed into the bullion molds and was conveyed away to the refinery. After the thorough treatment there it is shipped to the mint.
Everett has the western terminal shops of the Great Northern Railroad Company. At Lowell, a suburb of the city, is a large paper mill, producing the finest bond paper from wood pulp. The cottonwood growing in the surrounding country is brought here in cord-wood lengths; then is taken, a stick at a time, and chopped into small chips, being then carried to large vats and soaked in chemicals until it forms a pulp that runs over hot rollers, and running over continuous rollers is compressed and dried, bringing it down to fine paper. All this process is accomplished by the finest and most expensive machinery. The paper is then wrapped and baled ready for shipment.
In front of the city, across Gardner Bay, on Whidby Island, is the town of Coupeville, the shipping point for the products of the Island. From here one has a view of the Olympic mountains in the distance.
East of Everett, up the river, is the town of Snohomish, where are large shingle and saw mills.
I now leave this bright and enterprising town and draw my readers' attention to Seattle.