Snoqualmie mill quietly slips into history after 85 years
The last lumber passed through the wood-finishing plant earlier this month at the mill, which had been in operation for more than 85 years. The last planers and dry-kiln workers — those who had managed to hold onto their jobs even after a decade or so of layoffs — marked the mill's closure with a steak-and-baked-potato cookout on May 8, one worker said.
When the company announced in October that it was closing its King County operations and would lay off the last group of about 110 Snoqualmie workers, it didn't come as much of a surprise.
The Snoqualmie sawmill was shut down in 1989 and another mill was dismantled in the early 1960s, leaving only the wood-finishing plant and dry kiln. Those facilities will now be mothballed, their machinery salvaged and moved to other locations, said company spokesman Frank Mendizabal.
Weyerhaeuser's last sawmill in the county, in Enumclaw, closed late last month. Earlier this month, Weyerhaeuser finalized the sale of its 104,000-acre Snoqualmie Tree Farm — land that has been in company hands since its founding in 1900 — to the Boston-based Hancock Timber Resource Group.
Now that the 100-year relationship between the timber giant and Snoqualmie is essentially over, there's a sense of sadness, but also relief, said A.J. Hamilton, a 27-year employee who operated one of the plant's planers.
"There was this anxiety" after the closure announcement, "and it was like, 'Hurry up and get here' for us," Hamilton said. "I'm glad the chapter's over. Now, it's time to move on with our lives."
Painful for some
For others, though, the pain of the passage is more acutely felt. For decades, Weyerhaeuser was the largest and most stable employer in the Snoqualmie Valley, creating a self-contained economy.
"You feel as though your past is being erased and you can see it being erased," said Harley Brumbaugh, 68, who grew up in Snoqualmie Falls, the mill town Weyerhaeuser built for its workers across the Snoqualmie River from present-day Snoqualmie.
"It wasn't just a mill — it was our life. You got up with the mill whistle, went to school by the mill whistle, came home for lunch with the mill whistle."
Children were instilled with a strong value system and a work ethic, said Brumbaugh, a former teacher and Bellevue Community College's former music director. After 40 years away, Brumbaugh and his wife, Cathy, moved back to the Snoqualmie Valley two years ago.
"The caliber of people who came from that mill town was unbelievable," he said, ticking off the names of doctors, lawyers, teachers, a renowned archaeologist and even a 1940s Hollywood screen star who were all the progeny of Snoqualmie mill workers and woodsmen.
"We saw how hard our parents had to work, and there was a respect for the people of the soil," he said. "In order to make their lives significant, you had to make something of yours."
Pride in company
Though there's pain, there's also pride in the way Weyerhaeuser and its employees have taken care of the land, said Brumbaugh and his close friend, Fred Lawrence, who also grew up in the mill town.
For the past few years, the company sold permits to fishermen and nature lovers to access their timberlands. For $50, then $65, people could visit lakes, watch wildlife move among the trees, and pick berries and mushrooms in almost-guaranteed solitude.
This year, now that the land is under Hancock control, the permits cost $165 and are good until Dec. 8. They went on sale last week at ACE Hardware in North Bend and already, "we're doing better than we thought," said employee Marcia Bennett-Reinert, estimating 25 permits have so far been sold.
The slow death of Snoqualmie's lumber legacy "is sad but it's not the first time valley residents have watched things change," she said. Now, most people just want to make sure the forests surrounding them are preserved.
"From everything I've read, Hancock has a good record of taking care of their lands," Bennett-Reinert said. "The wilderness is important to us, and it's vitally important to this community that it's well-managed."
Times reporter Ashley Bach contributed to this report. Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com