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Title
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Coal in the Puget Sound Region
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Description
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Essay detailing the history of how railroad expansion and Washington coal mines for fuel and export shaped the economy and society of the Puget Sound. The essay also contains historical photographs from coal mines.
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Creator
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Laura McCarty
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Abstract
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The history of coal in Puget Sound is tied to the development and expansion of the railroad in the West. Locomotives burned coal, and coal, which is heavy and bulky, could not be transported without the railroad. These two industries grew together in the region, the health of each enabling the growth of both. Washington coal, used to fuel locomotives and steamships, and to heat homes in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere, found a major market in California. The largest mines were located in King County (Black Diamond, Franklin, and Renton), Pierce County (Carbonado), Kittitas County (Roslyn), and Lewis County (Centralia). In the nineteenth century coal was king, but increasingly in the twentieth century oil and natural gas were competitors. Across the country coal is widely used as a fuel to generate electricity, but in the Pacific Northwest, coal's fate was sealed by the move toward hydroelectric generation, although when hydroelectric dam construction largely ended in the 1960s, some utilities turned back to coal as one way to meet demand. In Washington state the last underground mine closed in 1975, and the last open pit mine, which operated at Centralia, closed in 2006.
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Publisher
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HistoryLink.org
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Date
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1/31/2003