Sinabang was the settlement on the southernmost bay of the east side of the island Simaloer (Simeulue) which gave the bay its name, and which became the industrial centre of the timber exploitation of the N.V. Vereenigde Javasche Houthandel Maatschappijen, with sawmill, stockyards, worker housing, hospital and waterworks; it was reached by government telegraph in 1914 and served by the K.P.M.
The industrial settlement
At Sinabang the Dutch timber company concentrated its Simaloer enterprise: the sawmill and the stockpiles of the concern were established there, and hence the stamlijn railway was built crossing the island in its breadth. For the housing of the European employees and of the more than 1,000 imported Javanese work-people, dwellings, sheds and kitchens arose; the company executed extensive sanitation works — raising the low bayland with earth dug out by an evacateur, levelling the whole terrain with spacious sewerage and cement gutters along all roads, and building a water conduit with prise d’eau formed by a dam between two mountain offshoots (a reservoir of 3½ hectares), which puta end to the formerly frequent dysentery. To the enterprise belonged a hospital, a hotel, an ice-factory, a sociëteit-building and a bioscoop; both work- and dwelling-establishment were wholly electrically lit. The increasing post traffic made the foundation of a post- and telegraph-office at Sinabang necessary, and in 1914 a telegraphic connection from Sinabang over Tapa Toean to Singkel came into exploitation; the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij maintained an agency at Sinabang.
See Also
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 109, 164, 166–170.