A large share of the product of the TACOMA lumber mills is supplied to
manufacturers in this city. A long list of industries has developed at
TACOMA in consequence of its pre-eminence as the lumber mart of the
State. There are many planing mills and sash, door and blind factories.
The largest plant of this description in the State is that of the
Wheeler-Osgood Company, on the flats, enlarged and rebuilt since its
destruction by fire in September, 1902. Tacoma has large ship yards
and builds the largest wooden vessels for sail and steam navigation
engaged in the Sound or Coastwise trade to Alaska. There are three car
construction and repair plants at TACOMA; several furniture factories,
including the largest plant in this industry on the Coast, that of the
Carman Manufacturing Company, covering six acres; the largest plant in
the West for the manufacture of coffins and caskets; also the largest
plant in this section of the world for the manufacture of wooden-stave
water-pipe, that of the Washington Pipe and Foundry Company. There are
several large plants for the manufacture of boxes and box shooks, and a
great variety of industrial enterprises for the manufacture of articles
chiefly of wood, such as ladders, wheelbarrows, incubators, churns,
carriages and wagons, kegs, mantles, pails, tubs, trucks, wooden spoons,
and many other articles.
[Illustration: Northern Pacific Railway Construction and Repair Plant.]
In this connection the fact should be mentioned that TACOMA is not only
the great mart for Washington fir, spruce, hemlock, pine and cedar—soft
woods, but has command also of abundant supplies of hard woods, such as
maple, oak and ash, which are also found in Western Washington. Among the
new TACOMA industries of 1904 is a large plant for the manufacture of
parlor furniture from hard woods such as are obtainable in this vicinity
or will be brought from the tropical forests of the Philippine Islands by
steamships plying between this port and Manila.