furnish fuel for this road, have not exported coal until the past year, when the output from them was one hundred and sixty thousand tons, and since the improvement in the facilities for handling coal on the water front; but whether exported or consumed at home, when the demand increases with the population, this contributes to the wealth of Tacoma.
The export from Tacoma of shingles by the train-load to the East is a new item of commerce which has already become important. The old-fashioned shingle which was made with a drawing-knife and shaving-horse was some years ago superseded by the portable shingle-mill, and the making of shingles, instead of being a haphazard, rainy-day occupation for the settler or lumberman, became a manufacture employing a good deal of capital.
There were about eighty-five of these mills in West Washington, some of which had no regular agencies or market for their manufactures. In 1889 a combination of forty of them was effected by the organization of the North Pacific Consolidated Shingle Company, with a capital invested in its various mills of one million dollars.
The shingles are made from red cedar, which neither shrinks nor warps and is exceedingly durable, and are graded into "extra" and "standard" lots. Special sizes and fancy butts are furnished as ordered. One sees many of these used for siding, on Tacoma houses, with a very pretty effect, the lower edges being rounded. They are only used on the second story and on houses of the cottage order and of fanciful designs.
The Washington shingle is absolutely perfect, being cut from timber without a knot or flaw, and of regulation size. Hence, with their other good qualities they are much desired by builders. The North Pacific Consolidated Company shipped in 1889—its first year of business—fifteen hundred car-loads, valued at four hundred and ten thousand dollars. The first train left Tacoma on the 12th of August, with colors flying and amid the cheering of spectators. It reached Chicago on the 21st. Denver alone took five hundred car-loads, the other two-thirds being taken in the Middle States,—New York and New England. Special cars, it is thought, will have to be provided for them, and the demand is already greater than the supply.
