Caption on image: Hamilton Shingle Mill, Hamilton, Wash.  Kinsey Photo No. 7  PH Coll 516.1435<br>The English Lumber Company had a controlling interest in the Hamilton Logging Company, which did business under that name from ca. 1908 to 1917, when the name was changed to the Lyman Timber Company.  Hamilton is a community on the north bank of the Skagit River ten miles east of Sedro Woolley in central Skagit County. It was once boomed as The Pittsburgh of the West because of iron and coal deposits in the vicinity. The town was named for William Hamilton, who homesteaded the land on which the town was built. His land claim was made in 1877 and the town was incorporated in 1891, when Hamilton's name was given to it.   The “shingle weavers,” as they were called, depended for their livelihood on the dexterity of their hands.  They juggled the freshly sliced shingles which fell from the flashing blades of the saws in a manual ballet which the director of a symphony might have envied.  They caught the pungent cedar boards in the air, flipped them from one hand to the other and “wove” them into finished bundles ready for shipment.  A journeyman shingle weaver could handle 30,000 singles in a ten hour shift.  Each time – 30,000 times a day – when he reached for one of those flying pieces of cedar, he gambled the reflexes of eye and muscle against the instant amputation of his fingers or his hand. [Source:  Prouty, Andrew Mason.  More Deadly Than War: Pacific Coast Logging, 1827-1981.  New York; London: Garland Publishing, Inc.  1985.]
<ul><li>Subjects (LCTGM): Children--Washington (State); Men--Washington (State); Dogs--Washington (State); Hamilton Logging Company--People--Washington (State); Hamilton Logging Company--Facilities--Washington (State)</li>
<li>Subjects (LCSH): Shingle industry--Washington (State)--Skagit County; Shingle industry--Washington (State)--Skagit County--Employees; Sawmills--Washington (State)--Skagit County</li></ul>
<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Clark_Kinsey" class="extiw" title="w:en:Clark Kinsey"><span title="American photographer">Clark Kinsey</span></a>
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circa 1912 <div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1912-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://content.lib.washington.edu/clarkkinseyweb/index.html">Kinsey Brothers Photographs of the Lumber Industry and the Pacific Northwest</a>