The Northwestern Magnesite Company, with its main processing plant just south of Chewelah, Washington and various mines and quarries in Northeastern Washington, helped supply a majority of the nation’s magnesite which used to be an integral component in the production of steel.

As war erupted in Europe in July of 1914, its effects hit the shores of the United States years before its own entry into the war. In the industrialized world of the early 1900s steel was a much needed, if generally available resource. However, the process of making steel that was used then required a mineral called magnesite. This resource was mostly mined and exported to the world by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As the world descended into conflict the Austrians, aligned with the Central Powers against the Entente, limited the export of strategic goods, magnesite included. This put a large strain on the United States and the steel mills that imported it.

The United States responded to this crisis by putting out a call to surveyors and geologists across the states to look for any sign of major deposits of magnesite. A man named R. S. Talbot was searching the Huckleberry and Selkirk mountain ranges for dolomite, a related mineral, for the Inland Empire Paper Co. of which he was the Vice President. He was given a sample especially rich with magnesite, and after having it tested and discovering it for what it was, he proceeded to cut ties with the paper company and worked towards forming his own company; The Northwest Magnesite Company.

Forming the main office in Spokane, a secondary office in San Francisco for the Board of Directors to meet in, and a smaller office in Chewelah itself for the accounting department. Of note in board members, other than Talbot himself, were B. I. Thane, manager of the Alaskan Gold Mines company, and F. B. Morse, manager of the Pacific Improvement company. The company was started in late 1916, with one of Talbot’s first moves being acquiring the U.S. Marble Co.’s Keystone Quarry in the area after discovering that the marble being quarried there was in fact magnesite. By August of the next year, it was producing 225 to 250 tons of refined magnesite to send to steel mills. As the war neared its end there was a fear that the company, which by that point was employing roughly a thousand local workers, would be forced closed by reopened trade routes with Austria bringing magnesite back to the east coast. However, the production and quality of the magnesite out of Chewelah was able to keep the company in business through even World War Two. The company lasted until 1968 when a faster method of forging steel was developed. After the plant closed the machinery was sold off or scrapped, ending the fifty-year life of the Northwest Magnesite Company.

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Washington was an important location for the Navy during World War Two, with both its Pacific ports and its expensive rail network. The Velox Naval Supply Depot was a massive complex, designed to both store and move supplies to the coast when needed, and was placed so far inland to help protect it from potential attacks.

During the Second World War, Spokane, 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean, became a major naval supply point.

As the United States entered World War Two and began ramping up its military industry, it needed distribution centers for the supplies. The Velox Naval Supply Depot in what is now Spokane Valley was one such location. One of only two inland naval supply depots, the other being in Utah, Velox was chosen for several factors. Being over three hundred miles inland and on the opposite side of the Cascade Mountains, it was naturally defended against potential Japanese attacks. The location in the Spokane Valley area was remarkably flat with only ten feet variation in height across the yard, and it had access to the Northern Pacific and the Spokane International railroads.

Construction began on May 16th, 1942. The site was designed and constructed by the architectural firm Whitehouse & Price, who also oversaw the construction of the Farragut Naval Training Station in Idaho. In June of 1942 Captain J. E. MacDonald, who was in command of the facility for two years, arrived on location with his entire staff of four naval officers and thirteen civilians, four men and nine women. As construction continued into the winter, there were no heating facilities finished and the few residents had to use improvised heat sources including an old threshing machine and a locomotive. Though the construction would continue for over a year, on January 1st, 1943 a formal commissioning took place with the mayor of Spokane, and the presidents of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce and the United States Chamber of Commerce.

After construction was finished and Velox was in full service it was the 5th largest naval supply depot in the United States, employing over 2700 workers. Roughly 35% of its employees were women, many of them WAVES or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, including noted Spokane Valley Historian Ensign Florence Otto, later Florence Boutwell, who was the depot accounting officer. It supplied bases along the pacific coasts and even those out in the ocean itself with boxes filled with enough supplies to feed a thousand sailors for sixty days. not including food and each shipment weighed approximately 3,500 tons.

After the war, Velox continued to be in service up through the Korean War before being closed down in 1958. It was then sold to Washington Water Power Company, now called Avista, and converted into the Spokane Business and Industrial Park before being sold again to Crown West Realty, who still owns it now.

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