In 1889, James Hill, railroad magnate, aimed to create the Northern Pacific Railroad. Many referred to this dream as “Hill’s Folly.” You see, the naysayers were convinced that there was no population built up in the PNW, nor did he have any “tonnage” in which to deliver goods to other parts of the country.

Hill had a plan and it was a good one.

Hill had convinced employees on the Great Northern Railroad to actively recruit African Americans from other parts of the country to migrate to the Pacific Northwest. One such employee was a young man named John N. Conna. Mr. Conna, a Civil War veteran, and his family were the first African Americans to reside in North Tacoma, now Federal Way. The family homesteaded 157 acres in Section 18, west of the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center in West Campus.

Conna helped build the population of the Tacoma area by enticing folks with visions of the American dream. In Tacoma, he was a politician, lobbied for equal rights, a successful real estate expert and served as the attorney and consultant to James Hill.

Now how does one create tonnage to support his new rail line? Due to a grab of controlling stock for the Northern Pacific Rail Road, Hill created the first panic on the NY Stock Exchange, and the Supreme Court had to intervene. He got what he wanted in a 68,750 square mile federal land grant and control over both transcontinental lines into Washington state.

Once back home in St. Paul, Minnesota, Hill was conversing with his neighbor, a timber industry leader, and asked him this simple question: “Do you like trees?” A handshake over the back fence brought James Hill and Frederick Weyerhaeuser into business.

In 1900, Weyerhaeuser and 15 business associates bought 900,000 acres of virgin timber from the Northern Pacific Land Company. Then, the largest land sale in U.S. history, at $54 million. Weyerhaeuser had purchased the railroad grant lands from Hill at just $6 per acre. It was later confirmed that Weyerhaeuser only paid 10 cents per 1,000 board feet. This sale jump-started the modern timber industry in the PNW. Nearly every tree from here to Mississippi now belonged to the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. Hill gives Weyerhaeuser meager shipping rates and the Northern Pacific had eliminated the Great Northern competition. Logging picks up in the early 1920s here in South King and Pierce counties.

A 1920s Kroll map shows that Weyerhaeuser Timber Company owned numerous sections of land in the city now known as Federal Way. There were other timber companies here as well, such as the Seattle-Tacoma Timber Company, West American Logging Company, and the West Fork Logging Company (WFLC).

WFLC was founded by L.T. (Tom) Murray in 1911. Murray named the company after a hunting day trip with a friend while hiking along the West Fork of the Tilton River. The two men had gotten lost in the snow-capped Cascades, and with daylight fading and succumbing to frigid temperatures, a patch of fallen Douglass Fir forest had exposed a route home. Trees creating a bridge across the river gave Murray a big idea.

Murray purchased the downed lumber, for a fine price and the quarter section, located near the mouth of the West Fork of the Tilton River, was to lend its name to both Murray’s operations — the West Fork Logging Company and the West Fork Timber Company. The book “The Enterprising Mr. Murray” tells of a most ambitious man who did not take “no” for an answer. He was fair with his employees, but he expected his employees to give their all. He was a man of strong principle, a forward thinking and a persuasive negotiator that set standards in “selective logging” for buying and selling timber.

Weyerhaeuser commissioned West Fork to log on their behalf. This was only done here in Federal Way. Phil Weyerhaeuser and Tom Murray were colleagues in the timber business. Sons George and L.T. Jr. went to school together and remained friends for many years. The Weyerhaeusers and the Murrays live just doors down from each other at Gravelly Lake in Tacoma to this day.

The West Fork Logging Company owned its own forests and logging railroad. This fourth-generation business still manages its lands to this day. Its main operations were at Seabeck and Mineral, Wash. WFLC operations came to Federal Way, and had logging camps at Redondo and Lakota. WFLC purchased roughly 355 acres of land in Federal Way. Two parcels of land were in Section 18, where 35 acres had belonged to the Conna homestead, and 160 acres were along 304th St., just west of Steel Lake.

Railroad spurs led from today’s S. 348th St. to 21st Ave. SW, down to Dumas Bay, with a log dump at Lakota beach. Johnny Mack owned a rail line that ran along Dash Point Road to the east on what is now S. 272nd Street to 16th Ave. South and north to S. 260th St. Sections of this railroad were built along the shoreline. It was 5 miles long and was served by one locomotive that pulled lumber filled platform along the present Dash Point Road.

Tom’s company used a 60 ton Climax and Pacific Car and Foundry skeleton log cars. These three donkey engines made it possible for the loggers to extract 50,000,000-board feet of timber, where timber ran 25,000 board feet to the acre.

A “yarder” or “donkey” was the steam engine placed on skids so it could pull itself through the forest with a cable system. The cables could also transport giant trees from hilly terrain. It is hard to imagine, but Federal Way had trees that were 10-15 feet in diameter and 150 feet tall. A favorite photo is the steam engine named “The Hylebos” that ran across sizable, straight trees. Difficult terrain led the loggers to be very creative at times.

In the 1980s, the Federal Way News reports that at age 92, Federal Way resident Phil De Rousseau recalls working for the WFLC at the Redondo Beach lumber camp that employed hundreds of men. Men often worked 10 hours a day for $5.

The Lakota Logging Camp was called Camp Six or “Little Palm Beach.” A logger trimmed up a tree and left just the top, resembling a palm tree. Palm Beach housed 60 loggers, which was small compared to some that were as large as 200.

A pier was located at Camp Six, where Mack’s locomotive would dump the logs to be transported by tugs to buyers across Commencement Bay at various mills. Weyerhaeuser had a log yard at the Port of Tacoma at the Hylebos Waterway.

WFLC operated their camps in Federal Way from 1921-1924. This fourth-generation company is still in operation today.

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Federal Way resident Suzanne Vargo gives thanks to Toby Murray, Annette Hillman, Chuck Soule and the Historical Society of Federal Way for assistance with this story.