Washington Safety Powder Company Blasting Powder Plant

 place with historical importance, historical layer / disappeared object

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Whitehorn had both a shot at glory and a whiff of scandal in the 1930s. In 1928 the Washington Safety Powder Company purchased 80 acres of land south of Aldergrove Road off what became Powder Plant Road. The company had big plans for a blasting powder plant, and finished building its 11 buildings by the spring of 1930, just after the beginning of the Great Depression. People eagerly awaited the start of production. Time passed, but nothing happened. Then several years passed and still -- nothing. It turned out that the company didn’t have the funds to buy materials needed to start operations, or for that matter, even to make payments for the land itself. To add insult to injury, Whatcom County residents who bought stock in the company lost their shirts.
The county eventually seized the property, but it didn’t go entirely to waste. Later in the 1930s the WPA (Works Progress Administration) sponsored dances in the buildings (the property’s caretaker sometimes joining in with his fiddle), and boxing matches were also held there. The buildings were dismantled in the 1940s, but the deserted plant site served as a convenient parking spot for local lovers for decades to come.