It is difficult to imagine the development of Washington State without the presence of the logging industry. It didn't take long for the California Gold Rush to expose the need for a steady, food supply of lumber. Starting in the 1850s, the area around the Puget Sound served this need. For a hundred years, no other industry came close to matching logging in its importance to Washington.
Many forests were nearly destroyed by heedless practices during those early years. Encourage by Gifford Pinchot of the US Forestry Service, and by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, compromises were gradually reached with an eye towards sustainable timber harvesting. Simultaneously preserving the forest and profiting from it is a tension that has defined Washington ever since.
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