In 1930, John T. Percival Jr., resident manager at Puget Sound Power & Light for the Enumclaw-Buckley area visited the coal mining town of Fairfax to inspect the Manley-Moore lumber operations. The tour was led by Robert D. Moore who co-founded the operation in 1907, in the upper Fairfax area of east Pierce County. Percival published his report in the Sept. 4, 1930 issue of the Enumclaw Courier-Herald. This photo of the lumber mill by Clark Kinsey dates to about 1927.
The lumber mill was located on the south bank of the Carbon River. A standard gauge rail track was laid from Fairfax across Evans Creek to serve the operation. Situated at 1,600-feet above sea-level, it was higher than any other sawmill in Washington state. Manley-Moore ran their own locomotives to haul sawn timber along tracks connecting to the Northern Pacific Railway line at Fairfax. Northern Pacific also served the nearby coal mining towns of Burnett, Carbonado, Melmont, Spiketon, and Wilkeson.
However, the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent depression undermined the market for lumber. Manley-Moore’s impressive operations were financed by loans and the company fell into the hands of a receiver. John Galbraith of the Eatonville Lumber Company picked up pieces of the company and installed D.L. Calahan to run the mill. In the early 1930s, the mill shut down for good. Several former employees remained at the Manley-Moore townsite, but homes were slowly abandoned as the area returned to forestry. Research for this column came from “Carbon River Coal Country,” published by Nancy Irene Hall in 1980 and the aforementioned Courier-Herald article.
