Puget Sound Wood Products Company.

The Puget Sound Wood Products Company origins began about 1905 to 1906. The purpose of the organization according to its 1907 prospectus was the extracting of turpentine, wood naptha, resin, tar, pitch, paint oils and other products from fir wood waste such as stumps, slabs and sawdust. It was a new "secret" process that the company had been developing in Vancouver, B.C., which was a distilling process to remove the turpentine and other oils from the wood waste. There must have been some concern about the process because a letter was sent from Mr. Kellogg of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to inform them that an inspector would be coming in the summer of 1907 to review the process. After the testing was completed near the end of 1906, the company sent out a prospectus for investors. The company's offices were at the People's Savings Bank Building in Seattle, WA. The company planned to erect plants on the West Coast for processing the wood waste into commercial products. The first two plants were to be in Vancouver, B.C. and Anacortes, WA. The company intended erecting plants in Grays Harbor, WA, Portland, OR and CA. In 1907, the Commercial Club of Anacortes offered the Puget Sound Wood Products Company a 13 acre factory site on the waterfront, which the Company accepted. It built a large facility to distill wood at the foot of 19th Street in Anacortes, WA. The plant included a 150' by 38' steam retort building, a 70' x70' powerhouse, an 88' by 40' refinery, a 30' x 16' laboratory, a 32' x 40' 2-story office building and a 12,000 square-foot wharf. The cost of building the plant was estimated to be $75,000 and would be operational by August 1, 1907. Captain Bushrod W. Bell had resigned his position as chief of the Northwestern division of the United States Secret Service to become the President of the Puget Sound Wood Company in 1907. Mr. Bell passed away in 1908. R.S. Green, who had been the Secretary, Treasurer and General Manager, became the President of the Company. By 1909, the Company had a lawsuit filed against them that went to the Washington State Supreme Court. The Anacortes plant was closed in 1914.

From the description of Puget Sound Wood Products Company correspondence, 1907. (Washington State Library, Office of Secretary of State). WorldCat record id: 191821524