Bellingham Bay Improvement Company.

Founded in 1889, the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company (BBIC) operated as a speculative real estate venture in Bellingham and Whatcom County, actively involved in resource extraction and railroad development.

Controlled initially by San Francisco investors, BBIC and subsidiaries were increasingly dominated by local interests during the first decade of the twentieth century. BBIC's predecessors included Bellingham Bay Coal Company (established 1854), Black Diamond Coal Company (1866), Bellingham Bay Water Company, and the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad Company (1883). In 1889, the BB&BC Railroad transferred all real estate assets to the newly formed Bellingham Bay Improvement Company (BBIC). Besides developing and selling property, BBIC engaged in logging and lumber manufacture, forming the subsidiary Bellingham Bay Lumber Company in 1906. In 1912 the Bellingham Securities Syndicate, Inc. (BSS) was formed gaining control of BBIC, the lumber mills,and the railroads. The lumber and railroad interests were sold off in order to concentrate on real estate and capital investments. Operations ceased in 1939.

Founded in 1889, the Bellingham Bay Improvement Company (BBIC) operated as a speculative real estate venture, also actively involved in resource extraction and railroad development in Bellingham and Whatcom County, Washington. BBIC’s predecessor’s were the Bellingham Bay Coal Company, Bellingham Bay Water Company, and the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad Company. In 1854, San Francisco investors established Bellingham Bay Coal Company to extract coal previously discovered by Henry Roeder in hills off the northeastern shore of Bellingham Bay. In 1866, Darius Ogden Mills purchased and reorganized the company as the Black Diamond Coal Company. Under the management of Pierre B. Cornwall, the mines operated profitably until their closure in 1878. By this time, Black Diamond had acquired considerable land around Bellingham Bay, and for the next several years, Cornwall concentrated the company’s efforts on the sale of real estate.

In 1883, Mills and Cornwall were involved in establishing two further Bellingham Bay enterprises: Bellingham Bay Water Company and the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad (BB&BCRC). BB&BCRC was established to construct a small railroad between Bellingham Bay and Sumas, a village on the British Columbia border. Cornwall and Mills, anticipating the arrival of the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway in Vancouver in 1887, hoped that their railroad would provide a strong incentive for an American transcontinental railroad to choose Bellingham Bay as its terminus. When construction of the railroad began in 1889, BB&BCRC transferred all real estate assets to the newly formed Bellingham Bay Improvement Company. Besides developing and selling property, BBIC engaged in logging and lumber manufacture, forming the subsidiary Bellingham Bay Lumber Company in 1906, and also producing and selling electricity to the surrounding community. Another BBIC subsidiary, Bellingham Terminals and Railroad Company, provided rail connections to local industries.

By the turn of the twentieth century, BBIC was entrenched in every aspect of the Bellingham economy. During the first decade of the twentieth century, and following P.B. Cornwall’s death in 1904, control of the company began to shift from San Francisco investors to interests in the Pacific Northwest. G. C. Hyatt, first employed by BBIC as a land agent in the 1890s, became one of the key figures in the new company leadership. Hyatt became president of BBIC in 1910, and in 1912 formed Bellingham Securities Syndicate with investors from Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellingham. The Syndicate soon purchased control of BBIC’s holdings and those of the lumber mills and railroad company. Hyatt and his associates sold off the lumber and railroad interests to concentrate on real estate and capital investments. The depression of the 1930s heavily affected the Syndicate’s holdings, and the final remnants of BBIC ceased operations on the eve of World War II.