cemaphon

D'oh! Image sizes fixed now.

Expansion & Renewal (EDIT - Fixed image sizes.) Last time around, the struggling seaport was just starting to attract some new business. So, the engineers got busy digging and dredging, and by the time of the US entry into World War II, the first major port expansion was complete: Note that a second cement plant was built to facilitate all the new construction. This one was laid out better for receiving gravel by barge. The port can be roughly divided into 2 main sections. The eastern half has the large factorie that use the main dock. The western half contains mostly storage facilities, and a few cranes for handling smaller loads. Companies are beginning to have enough faith in the economic potential of the region to build some truly massive factories. And even our own homegrown Holden Timber Products Inc. got into the action, building a large pulp & paper mill to supplement their sawmill and lumber business. You do NOT want to be downwind of this building! Now that I am starting to get some buildings that look good at night, how about nighttime at the port? Remember this? Well, Holden Timber Products Inc.now under corporate ownership grew tired of owning land that was practically worthless, and having their name associated with a dead town. They sold the land to a development company that was eager to build apartments for all the new workers in the port area, but who were unable to persuade the zoning commission of Glanton to let them build there. The result: Sure, it's cramped and noisy, and still fairly poor, but at least it has basic civic services, and houses that aren't falling apart. They even paved the alleys! More importantly, many of the millworkers have moved back to Holden, and along with the workers in the port area, the town feels much more confident about it's future. Some question the wisdom of letting kids play hoops at 2:00AM. All in all, a successful urban renewal, for now anyway. (I was originally going to let Holden stick around in its original form for longer, but those houses had monthly maintenance, and there were a lot of them. Plus, it was handy to build a close-by workforce for the docks.) Next we'll take a look at what's been going on in Glanton. A teaser: See you all next time.

Replies bbfan02 - Yeah, it's a cool mine. Peg's of course. edmonton_stinks - No! good economic/demographic consequences! Oh, and a garbage dock. Nevermind. palin1138 - I love making ports, and as my region is developing into a sort of alternate Seattle, I'll be building a big one sooner or later. 2nerdy4u - Thanks!

Coal Fever Up until 1905, the primary industries in Whitman Bay were agriculture and forestry. But that changed one day when a hunter tracking elk in the foothills of Mt. Erskine discovered an exposed coal vein. Within a year, rails were extended to the site, and a mine built. Several mineral companies rushed geologists to the region, and before long, two other likely locations were found. The newer mines featured a slightly more sophisticated extraction system. A San Francisco trust financed this coking plant between the coal mines and Holden. Before long, the miners were extracting so much coal that the railroads could not ship it fast enough. What to do? In 1915, a group of entrepreneurs based right here in Glanton financed the building of a coal dock on the coast east of Holden. Within 3 years they had not only recouped their investment, but made over 100% profit. The success of this venture set off a speculative craze among the business leaders of the towns around Whitman Bay. It seemed like everybody expected to make a fortune in shipping. So the coastline was regraded... and a small seaport was built, along with some storage and transport facilities. Unfortunately, with the industrial base of the area located along the Olalla River far from the seaport, most factories found it most convenient to continue shipping along the Northern Pacific Railroad line, and most of the original investors in the port went bust. It did manage to keep a trickle of goods flowing, especially once a spur of the railroad was built bypassing Glanton. A transportation map with the old railroad line highlighted in red, and the new one in green. By the late '30s, the port had attracted enough business to be judged a belated success, although that was small comfort to the original investors. Before long, people started to talk about expanding the port once again. We'll take a look at this expansion, and some of its consequences next time around.

Replies jaculina - Thanks. I need to work some more on my logging areas. The closeups look good, but the area shots don't look quite right. siso43, Benedict, bbfan02, penguin007, pagenotfound, palin1138 - Thanks for the kudos! caspervg, Mikeaut1 - yes, it's quite the polluter. It has killed a few of the nearby farms already. And the river is horribly polluted, so Glanton uses the Cedar River for their water source. 2nerdy4u - The terrain is Cycledogg's Olympic mod. It's great for the Pacific Northwest. You're right, that probably would be a good banner. edmonton_stinks - Interesting link. The houses I saw on their website didn't really look much like the foursquare to me though. They had more complicated rooflines, and less rectangular floorplans. They look like pretty typical houses for newer suburbs in the US too though. Somebody should BAT them. I should be able to get my next update up tonight.

Snapshots I will be adding to this post random pictures from around the region from time to time. Scenery, interesting buildings and other images that don't really fit into the theme of any particular update. There are logging trails all over the thick pine forests north of Holden. Watch out for bears! An industrial complex on the south bank of the Olalla River. Sorry about the visible grid. A large industrial center at Crook's Bend, where the Olalla and Pielle rivers converge. Glanton is just to the north, and many of its residents work here. An overview of the Olalla river, where you can see the industrial centers. (the one on the far left is the complex in the Whitman update.) In the early days of American cities, industries tended to be located along rivers and harbors for ease of transport and access to water. Sometimes, this waterfront gets reclaimed for recreational or residential purposes, but most US cities have at least some industrial waterfront to this day. Needless to say, the citizens of Glanton get their drinking water from the Cedar River. Thats all for now. Next update should be coming soon. A new industry comes to Whitman Bay!

Replies jacqulina - Yeah, those are some nice trees. Cycledoggs and Jeronjis I think. 2nerdy4u - Thanks. Industry is woefully underrepresented in CJs, and I love old funky factories and other industrial buildings, both in game and real life. Here in Seattle we have a public park built on the site of an old gasification plant: It's a fascinating building to walk around and look at. I wouldn't swim in the water there though. palin1388 - Thanks. Who knows how long I will be able to keep up this level of detail before I get impatient for a big city. It makes the game a lot more fun for me to think of it as a real place with a real history. KingTitan - Yep. I like the region view with lots of farmland. I don't do very much detail work on the farms themselves though. Right now I've got a tile full of those horrible grain elevators. calibanX - The smalltown set is so great, isn't it? penguin007 - Thanks. Really short update coming up, but I should have another small one ready for tomorrow. bbfan02 - Thanks. I found that American Foursquare picture just for you. It really is a cool set. It has a couple other styles that aren't in either of those pictures.

I like those towers next to the Coca-Cola building

Whitman Whitman occupies the south bank of the Olalla River along the railroad to Olympia. Almost all of the agricultural production in the entire region is processed here. A huge grain elevator dominates the western edge of the town. A short distance to the west of the town is a small industrial center. While it currently has several different industries, it started out as a vegetable cannery. Before modern refrigeration, most produce couldn't be shipped very far, and due to the remoteness of the Olympic Peninsula, most of the vegetables grown here needed to be canned first. The agricultural output of the region soon outgrew the capacity of the original cannery, so a new one was built. After the sawmill, it is the largest single employer in the region. This facility is capable of both freezing vegetables, and storing them in refrigerated containers to be shipped fresh to supermarkets across the entire western United States. This cement plant is located right by the river. Barges towing gravel can be unloaded right on the banks. The process would surely be more efficient with some waterfront development, but it is still much cheaper than shipping gravel by road or rail. Most of the development in the region uses cement from this plant. Whitman's Main Street. Similar to Glanton's but not as large. A close-up of the elegant brick storefronts along Main Street. There is also a small commercial strip near the grain elevator. Whitman has a great diversity of housing, for such a small town. There are several blocks of these small ranches. A bunch of the American Foursquare style houses. Many of these were built all over the US in the early 20th century. They were usually built from mass-produced plans, and often sold as kits, where you could have all of the building materials shipped to the site, and then assembled over a foundation. Unfortunately, tragedy can strike even in the most bucolic locales. Homicide is so rare here, that this house will be known as the 'murder house' for decades. Some newer homes, pretty typical of postWW2 suburbs in the US. More swimming pools! Why?! It rains all the time here. I know you've all probably seen these houses about a million times, but I love them. One of my favorite Maxis buildings. They're not very typical for the region though. Most of the very oldest housing stock around Puget sound is from the 1880s, by which time the Second Empire style had gone out of fashion.

Replies cleaner475, 2nerdy4u - Yeah, I love that school. There are thousands of schools like this from the early 20th century in small towns and older city neighborhoods. penguin007 - Yeah, it has a nice small-town feel to it. But it can't stay that way forever. bbfan02 - Oh man, I have tons of low density residential downloads, mostly from here, and some from sc4devotion. The next update will show off some more of them. As edmonton_stinks says, a bunch of the houses on that block are the American Foursquare set. It's a great set with a lot of variety of styles and paint/trim, and a style that is very common in much of the US. edmonton_stinks - That smalltown set is great. It's so nice to be able to create a commercial downtown that isn't filled with either modern office parks or all the maxis low-wealth commercial buildings that really look like they belong on the main road on the edge of a large town/small city. palin1388 - Sometimes I think I spend more time downloading and doing related file management than I actually spend playing the game. But there sure is a lot of great content out there. Next update tomorrow - plenty more nice small-town pictures, and a little industrial area. Meanwhile, changes are coming to Whitman Bay!

Glanton This is Glanton, the county seat of Olalla County and the largest city in the region. In the 1870's, Northern Pacific created a rail line from Olympia to Holden. As a result, the excellent but remote farmland in the river valleys became accessible and were gradually developed. A few canny homesteaders realized that the peninsula where the Pielle, Olalla, and Cedar rivers converged would be a great place for a town, so they pooled their land and incorporated in 1880, using a typical township-derived gridded plat. Most of the civic buildings in town are centered around 5th and Main Street. The simple brick town hall building was built in 1885, but was quickly overshadowed - in 1889 Washington became a state, Glanton became a county seat, and was allocated funds to build an elegant neoclassical county courthouse and administration building. Glanton has diversified its economy beyond farming. Businesses line main street for several blocks... while warehouses and light manufacturing have developed along the railway ringing the town. There is also a fairly large industrial area just south of Glanton across the river where many residents work. There are even a few modern corporate offices along 1st street. Glanton boast a few impressive mansions, largely owned by the descendants of the original founders, who made a fortune as their land holdings skyrocketed in value. A few are owned by the more successful business owners. Our old friend, Doc Holden built this beautiful Second Empire house with the profits from his sawmill. The owner of this Mediterranean-style mansion was bankrupted, and the house split up into apartments. A typical middle-class block. Why do so many people build swimming pools on the edge of a rainforest? (As an aside - does anyone know of any good Craftsman-style residential downloads? There are tons of these in Seattle, and I would like to incorporate them. The dark brown house in the lower-left is close, but I'm really looking for some single-story bungalows.) The northern edge of the town is mostly made up of smaller house and even a few rowhouses. No small town would be complete without its high school. That's all for now. Next update are the two smaller farming towns of Whitman and Novgorod.

Replies penguin007, 2nerdy4u, edmonton_stinks, Benedict - I always try to make sure I have a good slummy area going on. Totally pristine cities don't seem real to me unless they are those suburban "planned cities" (and even those can start getting pretty run down after awhile) And it was fun to make one that wasn't a NYC-style tenement slum. Here in Seattle, most of the really poor neighborhoods are largely single-family houses. Offtopic - Yeah, I agree they are very nice sawmills. I'll probably leave the old one around as an historical museum when the rest of the area redevelops. Cleaner475, palin1388, Skram, bbfan02 - Thanks for the kudos.

Holden It's not the nicest part of the region, but it is one of the most historically significant. Prior to 1851, the only settlements in the area were the tiny British garrison at Fort Richmond and the abortive Russian colony of Novgorod. But in 1849, gold was discovered in California and San Francisco grew from 1000 to 25000 people in a year with no signs of slowing down. In 1851, a Vancouver (WA, btw - Vancouver BC was not yet founded) shopkeeper named Doc Holden realized there was money to be made supplying lumber to the booming gold towns, and acquired financing to build a sawmill and small settlement on Puget Sound in the newest part of the Oregon Territory. Finished lumber was rolled straight out of the mill onto ships that would take it to Olympia, where it was transferred to rail. Doc Holden was able to use native labor for logging, but the demand for finished lumber quickly outpaced the capacity of his original expedition, so he looked for a way to attract more settlers. In 1854, the sawmill bought the nearby homesteads, and built several blocks of cheap housing. These houses would remain the property of the mill, but free lifetime leases were offered to settlers who would work at the mill for 15 years, This attracted a number of settlers, and business boomed, especially since San Francisco kept burning down every few years. These days, most of the millworkers live in nearby Glanton, and Holden has turned into a squalid slum. The few commercial businesses in Holden today. This is the modern sawmill complex. The old mill is mostly used for storage and repair of industrial machinery these days. Well, that's Holden. It ain't pretty, but it's where it all began. Next update will be the much more attractive and pleasant Glanton.

Replies Thanks for the welcome everyone - a few specific comments: LilFlipper, Jacquilna and bbfan02 - Yeah, Pegasus makes nice lots. Skyscrapers could take awhile unless I start getting impatient. Benedict - Heh. Who knew I had another post? I suppose I should start commenting on other journals. I've been reading them long enough. Teeparex - That property buying scheme in your CJ is clever.

I always start by looking for places in my regions where towns would naturally be sited - natural harbors, river features (river valleys, forks, deltas, etc) interchanges of obvious roadways - and plat small towns in these areas, placing the largest one in the area that I envision as the eventual city center. I'm usually emulating Western US cities, so these town cores are always gridded, except around terrain features. (incidentally, this was not primarily because of traffic flow concerns, but due to the fact that the Federal land grants for most of the Western US was parceled out in square lots) Towns are connected largely by rail (which mostly follow along rivers) and later by roadways. I'll zone some industry along the rails, and make a bunch of farmland in the flat areas. Then I grow the towns out and up, adding infrastructure and redeveloping as necessary. I like maps with harbors, so I usually end up building a huge industrial port at some point.