The Shingle Mill

Alpine, WA July 7, 2011.

The Alpine Lumber Company shingle mill was a couple of hundred feet east of the lumber mill, it is the small building in the foreground in this photo. The smokestacks at the mill are about where we have excavated some of the concrete mill foundation.

The 1919 Annual Banquet and Dance book has a list of the mill equipment that includes one Sumner upright shingle machine, probably housed inside this building.

The Sumner Iron Works produced three models of upright shingle machines: the Standard that cut 16" shingles, the High-Standard that cut 16" and 18" shingles, and the Gold Medal that cut 16", 18", and 24" shingles. Pictured here is the Gold Medal, the Alpine mill may have used a different model though.

 

In June we found a concrete thing near the shingle mill, this may have been a base for the engine that powered the shingle machine. The floor would have been 8 or 10 feet above the engine and it was probably connected to the shingle machine by a belt. In this photo we are looking west toward the lumber mill. The concrete foundation of the mill is about 200 feet in the distance.

The Sumner Iron Works was in Everett and produced sawmill and logging equipment. The Nippon Lumber Company owned one Sumner roader, a steam donkey with a horizontal boiler. Acrowood Corporation, a manufacturer of forest products equipment, now occupies the old Sumner Iron Works factory at 4425 South Third Avenue in Everett.