Why is the town of Black Diamond called Black Diamond? Black Diamond’s name comes from a mining company in California in the 1880’s called the Black Diamond Coal Company. The company name was used to name the area where coal mining was developed in Washington State.
Without coal mining, the town of Black Diamond would not exist today, according to the book, “Black Diamond: Mining and Memories”, edited by Diane and Cory Olson.
Actually, coal mining began in 1864 when mainly Welsh and a few Italians began to dig the high-grade coal in the area. In the late 19th century there was an enormous need for energy as America industrialized, changing from a mainly rural nation to an urban one.
Morgan Morgan, the Black Diamond Coal Company Superintendent in California, heard about the high quality coal in Washington Territory, so he came up to the area that is now Black Diamond to see for himself in 1882. There was plenty of high quality coal and lumber was readily available to shore up the mine shafts.
To acquire the property where the coal was, three homesteaders were sent up from California to improve the land and then deed it over to the company for a fee. Two kept their bargain, but the third, Tim Morgan, refused until the Company got him drunk and then got the property from him for a lower price than the other two received.
Eventually, the whole California coal-mining town of Nortonville was packed up with the inhabitants and the equipment and all moved to Black Diamond. According to the Olsons, the mines had to be developed manually, because it was impossible to bring in heavy equipment. Everything was brought in by pack train from the coal site in Renton. It took three days round-trip, crossing the Cedar River six times in the process.
Black Diamond Coal got an arm of the Northern Pacific to build a narrow gauge line from Renton to Black Diamond. 35-40 carpenters were brought in to build homes. Dense stands of trees had to be cleared, and enormous stumps were everywhere. Life was primitive. The first train arrived in 1884, and shortly afterward the families from Nortonville arrived. Most of the coal was shipped to San Francisco.
In 1904, the Pacific Coast Company bought the Black Diamond mine and the town. Coal production boomed in the early 1900s, surging the population to 3500. When World I began, there was even more demand for coal so the miners got a pay raise to $8/day. After the war ended, the company tried to reduce wages to $7/day, which didn’t set well with the miners who went on strike over wages and other issues in 1921. This was part of a national era of labor unrest.
Striking workers were fired, and strikebreakers, also known as “swamp angels”, came mainly from Montana, where they were starving. Since the striking miners didn’t own the land, only the houses, they were told by the company to sell at very low prices and get out. There was nothing they could do but move.
The strike never really ended, and no one, not the striking miners or the company, gained from it. Eventually, coal was replaced with oil, which was easier to transport, and gave more energy to power railroad engines, office buildings and factory furnaces. By 1938 and 1939, Pacific Coast disbanded as a company town. Property and homes were sold at very low prices, and the mines were leased out to independent operators.
In 1933 Palmer Coking Coal was created and they took what remained of the property in 1958. They still operate in Black Diamond to this day, selling sand, gravel, topsoil, beauty bark, red cinders, lava rock, and other landscaping products. The train depot became the historical museum.
The town of Black Diamond was officially incorporated in 1959. Today the population is about 4,484 according to “Population.us”. The town is expected to grow with the housing developments of YarrowBay. 6,050 new homes will increase the size of the town to 20,000 over 15-20 years, according to a July 2011 article in the “Seattle Times”. Not all are happy with this growth.
Black Diamond has changed a great deal since its inception as a company town in the 1880s. It appears on the cusp of another building boom and becoming a type of new company town, this time by a development company.
As Mark Twain is reputed to have stated, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”
This pioneer history article was written in coordination with the Enumclaw Plateau Historical Society and Museum located at 1837 Marion Street in Enumclaw.
