Building a Company Town
Potlatch Lumber Company officials
recognized that alcohol was a problem in the lumber industry, frequently causing absenteeism or tardiness
and reducing productivity. They also believed that satisfied workers would increase productivity and that
it was important to provide pleasant physical surroundings. By November 1905, they had made most of
the major decisions concerning construction of the town: Potlatch would be a closed community, owned
and operated by the lumber company, with no liquor permitted.
C. Ferris White landed the contract
to design the Potlatch Lumber Company's town. He arrived in Potlatch in January 1906, finding mill
construction well under way and twenty-eight small houses already built. Within a month, his crews had
built forty cottages, and by spring they had built over 100 workers' houses. While Wilkinson supervised
one crew assembling the sawmill, White oversaw the construction of more than 200 homes. On the north
hill several boardinghouses for single men were constructed, reserving working-class cottages for those
who were married. By the time the mill was into operation in September 1906, the town's population
had reached 1,000.
Churches and schools were added.
By early 1906 traveling Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and Catholic ministers held regular services
there. In May 1906 Potlatch directors instructed Deary to construct two churches at company expense,
one for Catholics, another for Protestants. Company directors agreed to construct a Union Church if
various congregations would agree to worship together. The result was a united parish of over twenty
denominations.
The WI&M Railway depot marked
the town's western edge, separating the community from the millsite beyond. Finished in June 1906, it was
the first major town building completed. In 1907 the school was completed, as was a small hospital.
Work crews erected a log jail while Potlatch was still a construction site, then replaced it in 1908 with a
frame jailhouse. The Potlatch Mercantile also opened in 1907 as one of the region's largest stores. Also
constructed was a two-story frame hotel across from the Merc with over 20 guest rooms. By the end of
1907 Potlatch had attained its basic configuration.
The company also encouraged
town beautification. All lawns were leveled and seeded to grass, and officials ordered hundreds of
trees to line the streets. Extra plantings graced the community's first park near the railroad depot.
In less than two years the
Weyerhaeuser syndicate had built one of the West's largest lumber company towns.
