The first successfully commercial mining of coal in Washington occurred in Bellingham. Captain William Pattle discovered coal in the Bellingham Bay area in 1851 while investigating timber for the Hudson Bay Company. Coal was close to water and transportation via ship was simple. Coal mining had earlier been established in Nanaimo, British Columbia in 1849, and that trading post became a center for coal shipments. Joseph W. McKay, a Hudson Bay man was instrumental in establishing those mines.
Coal which fetched $11 per ton in Nanaimo but $28 per ton in San Francisco, set in motion the destination for most early coal mined in Washington State. The next major Bellingham operation was undertaken in 1853 when the Sehome mine was developed to exploit a coal seam underlying the current downtown area. Whatcom County remained an important coal mining center for over 100 years, until the last mine finally closed down. This 1952 photo of the Bellingham Coal Mines’ surface facilities includes a train of coal cars exiting the portal of their Birchwood mine.
These mines operated from 1917 to until December 1954 on a 12-14 foot thick seam of which 8-9 feet was mined. Their total 37-year yield was 5.3 million tons with the highest annual total of 288,000 tons produced in 1927. At its peak the mine employed over 260 miners. Much of the mine’s output was used by cement plants in the town of Concrete located about 50 miles east on Highway 20. Cement was in high demand during construction of the Skagit River dams in the 1920s and 1930s. Coal is a key ingredient in the production of cement. The mine was located north of Squalicum Creek, on what is now Birchwood Avenue east of Northwest Avenue and extended directly under Bellingham.
After closing, the mine entrances were backfilled and today the area supports a shopping center and parking lot. The mine is flooded to the level of the local water table. This photo comes courtesy of the Whatcom Museum of History and Art with research assistance provided by George Mustoe of Western Washington University. Next week more about logging near Bellingham.
