Palmer Coking Coal Collection

Palmer Coking Coal Company is a producer, supplier, and retailer of a wide selection of sand, gravel, topsoil, beauty bark, red cinder, lava rock, and other construction and landscaping products. It is a family-owned and operated business incorporated in Durham, Washington on August 14, 1933. The company no longer mines coal, In the company name, �Palmer� comes from the generally forgotten town of Palmer-Kanaskat, Washington (near Durham), located in east King County. Coking refers to a type of coal which could be partially �cooked� to extract impurities. Coal was the mineral mined during the Great Depression, when thirty or more companies competing for market share in a declining industry around Seattle. During the 1950s Palmer acquired a land base which allowed expanded mining opportunities in Black Diamond, Ravensdale and�Franklin, Washington. Diversification into other extractive products soon followed: red cinders, clay, silica, timber, sand, gravel, and topsoil.