Workers process sheets of plywood at the St. Paul and Tacoma plywood plant in the Port of Olympia, in the 1940s. The plant was established in 1921 as the Olympia Veneer Company, an innovative worker-owned cooperative. In 1946 the plant was sold to the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company. The machinery shown here was supplied by Tacoma’s Globe Machine Company. The plywood and veneer manufacturing businesses in the Port of Olympia contributed heavily to the war effort during World War II. Today, only remnants exist of these once-thriving and important elements of Olympia’s economy.
Vibert Jeffers photograph, 1940s, Susan Parish Collection, Southwest Regional Archives
Text © Deborah Ross and The Olympian