Founded in 1889, the Seattle Cedar Lumber Manufacturing Company (SCLMC) was one of the many mills that helped transform Seattle into the lumber capital of the Pacific Northwest. Located on Salmon Bay, the company specialized in milling Western red cedar, a wood prized for its natural resistance to rot and insects and widely used for shingles, siding, poles, and boatbuilding. The mill benefited from the region’s abundant old-growth forests and easy access to rail and maritime shipping, allowing its products to reach customers throughout the United States and overseas. Like many early Seattle lumber operations, the company played a key role in the city’s rapid growth during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, supplying the lumber that built homes, businesses, and infrastructure across the expanding West while helping establish Seattle as a major center of the timber industry. SCLMC produced millions of board feet of lumber and shingles, which were air-dried in towering piles over 50 feet high for at least nine months. The mill suffered a massive fire in 1958 that tore through the stacked cedar and destroyed the mill. While it was quickly rebuilt and resumed production, SCLMC closed permanently in 1973 as old-growth cedar log supplies became increasingly scarce.
