HOQUIAM

A short history of Hoquiam

About 10 years later, Captain Asa M. Simpson, a Pacific Coast mariner and businessman in the lumber industry from San Francisco, provided the financing for the Northwestern Mill. In 1881, Simpson sent his manager, George Emerson, to Hoquiam to establish a mill there, and Emerson purchased 300 acres (120 ha) for the new mill and lumber operation. By September 1882, the Simpson mill was producing its first lumber products.

In 1886, Simpson merged his mill with the Miller Brothers mill, also located in Hoquiam, and named it the Northwest Lumber Company. The mill was later renamed the Simpson Lumber Company, and retained that name until 1906. In 1913, Frank J. Shields became the new manager at the mill at Hoquiam.

The extension of the railroad from Aberdeen to Hoquiam, beginning in 1898, contributed to the continued importance of logging and lumber in Hoquiam. The importance of logging and related products continued to be relevant to Hoquiam's economy, and in 1927, a pulp mill was established under the name of Grays Harbor Pulp Company. A year later, a Pennsylvania company, the Hammermill Paper Company, became interested in Grays Harbor Pulp Company. When the Pennsylvania company bought stock in the Grays Harbor Pulp Company, the Grays Harbor pulp Company built a paper mill and became the Grays Harbor Pulp & Paper Company. In 1936, the Grays Harbor Pulp and Paper Company merged with Rayonier Incorporated, a company which manufactured a certain kind of wood pulp used by its customers to produce rayon.

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Hoquiam, Washington, revision 1379974521 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.