Nagrom (Washington)

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Nagrom was a small town ( Town ) in King County in the US state of Washington . Founded as a factory settlement for a logging company, Nagrom was in the catchment area of ​​the Green River between Kanaskat and Lester . The city was founded by the Morgan Lumber Company and named after Elmer G. Morgan, the company founder and owner (“Nagrom” is simply the reverse of “Morgan”). The site was chosen because of its access to wood and its suitability for building a saga mill and a mill pond . In 1910, Morgan asked the Northern Pacific Railway , which operated the line from Puget Sound over the Stampede Pass , to move a branch line to the small town. The rail company resisted, but Morgan persevered and eventually the NP gave in. The branch line was built in 1911. In the same year a post office was established, along with access to telephone and telegraphy.

Between 1914 and 1918 floods occurred in the Tacoma catchment area (in the Nagrom area), which carried sewage and contaminated water from the factory settlement into the water supply of the city of Tacoma. Concerns about a general health risk at the time, namely typhoid fever, had the health authorities instruct the residents of settlements downstream from factory settlements such as Lester, Baldi and Nagrom to boil their drinking water in order to reduce the risk of typhus.

From 1911 to 1924, the Morgan Lumber Company continued logging and operating the Nagrom sawmill. The population of Nagrom rose to 450 in 1921/22. However, due to a drop in the price of wood after the First World War , the company ceased operations in 1924. Wood was still being felled, but the pace was greatly reduced. There was also a change in timber haulage when trucks began to replace the railroad. The United States Forest Service began managing forest land in the area in the 1930s, with the assistance of the Civilian Conservation Corps .

The City of Tacoma acquired the water rights to the Green River in about 1910. In the first half of the 1950s, Tacoma Public Utilities , now Tacoma Public Utilities, began purchasing private land along the riverbank between the water supply to the city in Headworks (immediately east of Kanaskat ), eastward to the railroad and lumberjack town Lester . Beginning with the construction of the Howard A. Hanson Dam , the city restricted access to the areas between Headworks and Lester by building gates at various access points to the Green River basin. Around 1967 the city of Tacoma bought the entire locality of Lester from the Northern Pacific Railway . By 1984, most of the residents left Lester, the tracks were shut down by the NP's successor, the Burlington Northern Railroad , and all previous communities along the railway line became ghost towns. Today there are no more residents in Nagrom either.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Linda Carlson: Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest . University of Washington Press, Seattle and London 2003, pp. 22-23.
  2. ↑ John A. Phillips, III: Spelled In Reverse. EG Morgan and a Town called Nagrom . March 20, 2002. Retrieved November 9, 2010.

Coordinates: 47 ° 13 ′  N , 121 ° 36 ′  W