File:Interior of mess hall with crew member, with suspended condiment shelf above tables, Workman Creek Logging Company, ca 1926 (KINSEY 1037).jpg

Caption on image: Workman Creek Logging Co. C.K. Kinsey Photo, Seattle. No. 167 PH Coll 516.5145

Workman Creek Logging Company was in business from ca. 1923 to ca. 1929, with headquarters in Hoquiam and logging operations based in Elma. Elma is a community on the Chehalis River 27 miles west of Olympia in southeast Grays Harbor County. It was once an important logging center and is now largely dependent on agriculture since the nearby Satsop Nuclear Power project was shut down. It was named for Miss Elma Austin, whose family settled in the vicinity before 1860. Two other name sources have been suggested. One is that the name is for Elmer E. Ellsworth, the first soldier to be killed in the Civil War, but with his given name shortened to the present form by post office officials. Another is that two residents of the town submitted the name Elmira when a post office was established, and that postal officials shortened the name to the present form because of another Almira in the state.

• Subjects (LCTGM): Mess halls--Washington (State); Condiments; Cooks; Lumber camps--Washington (State); Interiors--Washington (State); Lumber industry--Washington (State); Workman Creek Logging Company--Facilities--Washington (State); Workman Creek Logging Company--People--Washington (State); Grays Harbor County (Wash.)