The State of Washington has natural products either within its
own borders or nearby, to foster many manufacturing industries,
besides those having lumber for their raw material.
In the Puget Sound basin are vast deposits of lime rock, which
is manufactured into commercial lime, supplying the home market
not only, but is being shipped also to foreign ports. These are
chiefly on San Juan island.
Considerable granite of fine quality is used in building and cemetery
structures, from quarries in Snohomish and Skagit counties. Sandstone
is being used for building purposes and is of splendid texture.
Onyx of great variety and beauty is extensively quarried in Stevens
county. Marble of good quality is being sawed up to limited extent.
Quarries in southeastern Alaska furnish rather a better quality
and are more extensively worked.
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Clays of great variety, including fire clays and those suitable
for terra cotta, are abundant, and large factories in King county
are turning out common and pressed brick of many colors and fine
finish, vitrified brick for street paving, terra cotta, stoneware,
drain tile, sewer pipe and other kindred products.
At Concrete, a town of 1,200 people in Skagit county, two factories,
employing 500 men, are daily turning out 1,400 barrels of Portland
cement of fine quality, which is finding ready market in all the
large cities.
At Irondale, in Jefferson county, a large plant has been in operation
turning out pig iron. It is now in process of being turned into
a steel plant and within a few months will be turning out steel
bars and pipes for sewer, gas and other purposes. The ores are
obtained from Whatcom and Skagit counties, some bog iron in the
immediate vicinity and additional ores from Vancouver island. More
than a half million dollars has already been invested and this
will probably reach a full million when the plant is in complete
operation. Although iron ores are present in the state in large
quantities, no other serious effort is being made to supply the
state with home made pig iron or its products. Here is a vast field
awaiting brains and capital. The above represent only a few of the
many lines of manufacturing that have been successfully developed
in Washington.