 ABUNDANT TIMBER AND RESOURCES Grays Harbor, with its abundant timber resources in close proximity to shipping lanes, began to draw the interest of lumber barons from all over the country.
Captain M. Simpson, prominent lumberman from California, who desired to extend his timber empire to the Pacific Northwest, was one of the first to recognize the economic potential of Grays Harbor's natural resources. Simpson sent George Emerson on a scouting trip which led to the purchase in 1881 of the James' Homestead (300 acres) at the mouth of the Hoquiam River.
GRAYS HARBOR FIRST MILL
 Simpson and Emerson's purchase became the nucleus of the first sawmill on Grays Harbor, the Northwestern Lumber Company. The Northwestern Lumber Company was soon cutting 100,000 board feet of lumber daily, and schooners awaited their turn in the bay to load their cargoes. Lumbering dominated the town as it grew. Hoquiam literally grew up around three pioneer mills -- the Northwestern, the E. K. Wood, and the Lytle brother's Hoquiam Lumber and Shingle Company.
BOOM TOWN The city was incorporated in 1890 with a population of 1,302 persons. The first known forms of recreation to become popular in Hoquiam were log rolling and bicycle racing. In 1893 the City hosted the first of many bicycle races between Hoquiam and Aberdeen. Today's Loggers' Playday retains the same activities and spirit of the early loggers and has become a national event.
 The logging and lumber business peaked during the late 1920s. The entire industry bottomed out during the 1930s depression, as nine major mills closed on the harbor. The Great Depression cooled off the industrialization of the area and the population stabilized.
The 1920s and 1930s saw great scientific and technological advances in the development of new wood products such as plywood from tree fibers. This area soon became the plywood producing center of the West Coast.
LOGGING RESURGENCE In 1927 the E.M. Mills family established Grays Harbor Pulp Company in Hoquiam, and soon it expanded into a paper/plywood mill. While plywood industries took up some of the slack in industrial production during the 1930s, the timber and lumber industry on the Harbor would never again experience the heady days or profits like those prior to the Great Depression days of the 1930s.
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