In a span of two years, the company recruited more than 300 black laborers from Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Many relocated with families, and this migration was the largest increase in the African-American population of Washington Territory up until that time. Sheriff Packwood of Kittitas County reported to Semple that relations between out-of-work white workers and the black population were strained with potential to turn violent. However, after the strike broke tensions reduced, and whites reconciled with working along black miners. As the regional coal industry boomed, competition for employment reduced, and eventually workers organized as equals with United Mine Workers.