Remembering Bellingham’s Past Employers- Times Have Changed
We are going to be doing something new on the blog, a look back at Bellingham and Whatcom County’s history and the many stories it contains.
The following is written by a client of our Geneil Chevalier. Geneil is 85 years old and has been a resident of Bellingham for 82 years…
GP is closing its operation in Bellingham! It has been common knowledge this would be happening at some point in time since the closure of the Pulp Division several years ago, but it was a bit of a surprise that it was quite this soon. Various stories have appeared since the announcement in the Herald: conversations with employees; and the Governor’s visit to explore options for those being affected. This has caused me to think back in my mind of another time, another way of handling such situations.
Bellingham became my home back in 1925. The shoreline of Bellingham Bay was dotted with sawmills, several of them; sawmill were the primary base of the local economy. The majority of my friends’ fathers were sawyers or had other jobs in the mills. Bloedel Donovan was the largest, located at the base of Cornwall, hiring over 3,000 men.
In the mid 1940’s Bloedel Donovan announced it would be closing the mill and moving to Canada. Bellingham’s population at that time was about 33,500. Without fanfare the mill was closed and the 3,000+ men were on the streets of Bellingham without a job; they had never done anything else and there was little else for them to do. There wasn’t Unemploment INsurancel no Taft0Hartley Act; no severance pay; no place to go for help. They were on their own to find a job with no money coming in while they did.
Some men left town giong to other timber mill areas, my parent�s best friend who was 55 at the time spent the next 10 years until retirement as a dishwasher at the Leopold Hotel, which along with the Bellingham were the City’s finest. Some men never worked again and were on “Relief”. Bellingham was in despair for years. Mobil’s arrival in 1955 followed closely by INTALCO began to change the tide.
It makes it rather clear why unions gained strength and at the State and Federal level programs were created to require a reasonable time of notification, Unemployment Insurance, help and opportunity for job retraining and employers offering to transfer employees.
Bloedel Donovan Park on the site of the old Larson Mill , part of the operation, didn’t make up the difference to those affected.
