The nearby mural shows two parts of Yacolt's busier days after the Yacolt Burn. This is from the Yacolt page at historylink.org:
Over three blazing days in September 1902, the largest forest fire in recorded state history to that point (and for more than a century thereafter, until surpassed in July 2014 by the Carlton Complex fire in Okanogan County) raged through 350 square miles of Clark, Cowlitz, and Skamania counties. The inferno reached the very edge of Yacolt, then turned north, largely sparing the townsite proper but destroying nearby homes and buildings. Before rains doused the blaze on September 13, it had taken 38 human lives, killed countless wild and domestic animals, and destroyed at least $30 million worth of lumber (at 1902 prices). Yacolt's close call was noted in Burning an Empire: The Story of American Forest Fires, written in 1945:
"The fire tore down the hill and paint began to blister on the fifteen buildings that comprised Yacolt. Some of the elder folk looked at the spectacle and said it was the end of the world, sure enough. The entire population went to a near-by creek and stayed there all night. Next morning they found Yacolt blistered here and there, but intact. The main fire had stopped less than half a mile from the settlement and had been hot enough to make paint run from that distance" (Holbrook, Burning an Empire).
In fact, the entire population did not flee to a nearby creek. The Coles, who owned the dairy farm next to the school, buried their valuables, bundled up their children, and fled on horseback to Camas on the Columbia River, some 20 miles to the south.
There were other dramatic accounts of those three days of terror. Frank E. Barnes, a former state senator from Cowlitz County, recalled just how far the impact of the inferno could be felt:
"The smoke darkened the sun, so that, although we were fully one hundred miles distant we had to use lights to run our mill and the chickens went to roost in daytime. All day, leaves would come floating through the air and light on the lake. When touched they dissolved into ashes. Many people believed the world was coming to an end. There were many funerals for victims of the fire" (Told by the Pioneers).
The fire was devastating, and at least 148 families lost their homes, including the McCutchens. In its aftermath, the largest timber company in the world was forced to rewrite its business plan, and this in turn started a years-long boom in Yacolt.
Out of the Ashes: Weyerhaeuser and the Railroad
In 1900, Frederick Weyerhaeuser and 15 partners bought 900,000 acres of prime Washington state timberland from the Northern Pacific Railway. At first the company was not interested in logging per se, but only in acquiring forested land and selling standing timber to local manufacturers, who would then arrange for its harvest. In the course of three days, the Yacolt Burn forced the company to remake itself.
Vast areas of Weyerhaeuser timberland were raked by the blaze, and tens of thousands of fir, cedar, and hemlock trees were left charred and dead. But under their blackened exteriors, most of the trees could still provide quality lumber. The company couldn't wait for others to come in and salvage the timber, and it quickly set up headquarters in Yacolt to do the job itself. Weyerhaeuser opened two subsidiaries in Yacolt, the Clark County Timber Company and the Twin Falls Logging Company, to manage the massive operation. Hundreds of loggers were brought in to carry out the exceptionally dirty and dangerous work, which was to take the better part of 10 years to complete. This is how, and why, the Weyerhaeuser Company moved from the property-ownership business to the logging businesses.
Just as the Yacolt Burn pushed the company to change, so it pulled Yacolt into the twentieth century. The small community of only 50 people and 15 buildings became, for so long as the salvage operation went on, a modest boom town. And it had some luck, too -- even before the fire, the Portland, Vancouver and Yakima Railroad was working feverishly to extend its tracks from Battle Ground to Yacolt, and the link was completed in 1903. This allowed the salvaged timber to be transported by rail all the way to lumber and paper mills in Vancouver and at other sites along the Columbia River.
Late in 1903 the railroad, now known as the Northern Pacific, started a once-daily passenger service from Battle Ground to Yacolt. As more people came to the small town hoping to land work on the salvage operation, a Vancouver newspaper, the Independent, was enthusiastic about the region's future:
"Keep your eye on Yacolt and Battle Ground. Both of these little towns are now experiencing booms that are almost phenomenal. During the past month there has been quite a movement in real estate in both places and a number of new buildings have been erected. The booms in both towns are occasioned by the increase in the logging business. The Columbia River Lumber Company have just established three camps on a spur near Battle Ground and in the Yacolt Country preparations are being made for an extensive logging business" ("History of the CPRR").
Yacolt was to prosper for several years, until the salvage operation was completed. With progress came both problems and opportunities. As early as 1903, applications to open two saloons in the previously dry town were submitted. There was at first no available housing for the influx of workers, and many had to live in tents. On the plus side, hotels, stores, restaurants, and churches eventually were built, and Weyerhaeuser provided the town with a hospital. In 1906 a two-story school was built to educate the influx of children, and by 1908 Yacolt's population had reached 500. Residents then voted to incorporate their town, and the first council meeting was held on July 31 of that year.
Things were going well in Yacolt. A 1909 article in The Coast magazine had this to say:
"Platted in 1903 and incorporated into a city in 1908 with a population of about 500, Yacolt today is a thriving and fast growing little city, with all branches of business represented. A large area of prosperous country surrounds the city, and farming, dairying, fruit raising and logging is carried on extensively. It is safe to say that near and around Yacolt there is standing timber amounting to a billion feet, and most of it is of the finest quality, yellow and red fir, cedar and larch predominating.
"Here is the headquarters of the Twin Falls Logging Company, one of the largest logging operators in the state, having twenty-five miles of logging roads and a monthly capacity of about 10,000,000 feet. It employs over 300 men, and its monthly payroll is about $25,000.
"Most of the soil, except on the rocky ridges, is fertile and the logged over lands are well adapted for fruit raising and grazing; vegetables of all kinds and of the best quality can also be raised" (The Coast magazine).
This view proved overly optimistic. Nothing lasts forever, and this is particularly true of natural resources. Yacolt's days of prosperity would soon draw to a close, its growth would stop, and it would slowly slide into reverse.