Tacoma History
From the book; Washington - A Guide to the Evergreen State
Compiled by the Work Projects Administration in the State of Washington
Printed in 1941 

Tacoma in 1940 had a population of 109,498 people, and before they were forced onto the reservation in the 1870's, it was the home of the Puyallup tribe. The City of Tacoma lies along the protected waters of Puget Sound and Commencement Bay into which the Puyallup River drains. Tacoma is about midway between Seattle to the north and Olympia to the southwest. Commencement Bay, a fine natural harbor on the Sound, is recognized as one of the country 's leading ports.

Few cities may boast a more beautiful setting. To the west is the sweep of Puget Sound with wooded bluffs rising from the water's edge, and far to the northwest are the Olympic Mountains, visible in clear weather, a soft line in the haze of summer, a clear-cut jagged ridge in winter. On the east side of town are the flats of the Puyallup River, the semi-wooded farming area stretching eastward to the foothills, and prairies with patches of woodland. Marking the eastern horizon are the Cascade Mountains, and looming majestically to the southeast is the snow-capped, truncated cone of Mount Rainier — serenely beautiful in midsummer, mysterious when half-shrouded in the gray mists of autumn, and unforgettable if seen at sunset of a clear midwinter day, suffused with an alpine glow that slowly gives way to blue shadows, which creep up the long snowy sides with the sinking of the sun.

Along the bay and on the flats are sawmills, factories for lumber products, railroad shops and other industrial establishments, including two important electrochemical plants. Railroad tracks are lined with freight cars and noisy switch engines. The acrid odor of coal smoke and the penetrating smell of the tideflats mingle with the resinous fragrance from piles of newly cut lumber. Beyond the sluggish river, smoke rises from burning piles of refuse. Sometimes the air is heavy with the biting, choking smell of sulphur from the pulp mills.

To the northwest is the towering smokestack of the Tacoma Smelter, one of the two highest stacks in the world and visible for miles, with its drifting trail of light, lemon-colored smoke. The smelter is operated by the American Smelting and Refining Company in the little town of Ruston, at the edge of Point Defiance Park. Steamships from all parts of the world are busily loading and unloading cargo; puffing tugs with tows of logs, slow freighters, and small pleasure craft and fishing shacks, manned by European fishermen, dot the bay.

Gulls wheel on flashing white wings or perch on floating logs, old pilings, or dock roofs, on the alert for refuse dumped from the galleys of passing steamers. Always the tang of salt water is in the air, and the smell of seaweed on hot summer days, or may be sharp and fresh when a brisk wind sweeps inland from Puget Sound. It is not easy for the pedestrian to get an impression of the Tacoma water front as a whole; but Wayside Drive, following along the edge of Commencement Bay, permits a good over-all view of the harbor itself, the numerous docks, with an occasional freighter moored alongside, the fishermen's docks and small fishing craft; and across, almost at a right angle with the drive, may be seen the Port of Tacoma piers and the terminals and piers owned by the various railroads and industrial concerns.

Rising above the industrial area of the waterfront is the business district, with modern department stores, hotels, apartment houses, and lofty office buildings alternating with middle-aged structures and dingy shops, second-class hotels, second-hand stores, and chop houses. North, west, and south from the city center, wide boulevards and streets ascend steep hills to a broad plateau, given over to residence districts and community retail centers.

Quite justifiably Tacomans are proud of the fine residential sections, notably the north end of the city, on and beyond Prospect Hill, with beautiful modern estates and occasional old-fashioned mansions, dated by hitching posts and mounting blocks. Other attractive residence districts, with clean streets, neat lawns and comfortable houses, are scattered throughout the city. Beautiful, too, are the broad tree lined streets and the parks, some comprising many acres of shaded lawns and gorgeous flower beds. But Tacoma, like all modern cities, has its slums — dingy old buildings converted into rooming houses, squalid un sanitary shacks, and crowded, cheap hotels.

The people of Tacoma are on the whole a stable population; more than 50% own their own homes, and local pride and interest are strong. About one-fifth of the townspeople are foreign born, and many more are the children of foreign born, representing a variety of ethnic groups. Scandinavians, Germans, and Irish are numerically and culturally important, contributing to the industrial and intellectual life of the entire city. The Swiss and American-born Swiss, a small but active group, have their own societies, wrestling and other dubs, and a social hall.

The Croatians form a large group, especially in the section now known as Old Town; they work in the smelter and fisheries and are commonly seen in their small fishing smacks. The Poles are another important element in the population; St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church has an entirely Polish congregation, and parts of the services are read in that language. About 700 or 800 Americans of African ancestry live in Tacoma; and many work in the smelter and as employees of the city, and a fair proportion have entered the professions.

Indians from Muckleshoot Reservation are often seen in the streets of Tacoma, but the majority live outside the town. Many Filipinos, Chinese, and Japanese are found in the service trades. Truck gardening is a favorite occupation also with the Chinese and Japanese people, and they peddle their fresh and brightly colored produce about the streets. The city has approximately 50 churches, representing virtually all the religions, and among them are many of architectural interest.

The oldest is St. Peter's Episcopal Church, a simple frame structure built in 1873; at that time a bell was contributed by St. Peter's in Philadelphia, brought around Cape Horn, and placed in a bell tower made by topping a small fir tree; the improvised tower served for many years, and the bell is still in use. Holy Communion Church, on South I Street, is one of the larger Episcopal congregations today. Roman Catholic churches include the beautiful Holy Rosary Church on Tacoma Avenue and Saint Patrick's Church. The Church of the Immaculate Conception, built near Fort Steilacoom in the early 1850's, was moved to Steilacoom in 1867 and is still in regular use.

Old Saint Leo's Catholic Church, which burned in 1921, was built, so it is said, as an auditorium for William Jennings Bryan in 1896. The small Presbyterian Church on 14th Street, built of Tenino sandstone, is one of the finest architecturally in the city. The other Protestant denominations are well represented; among the larger edifices are the First Congregational Church, a Gothic building of smooth-cut sandstone, Central Lutheran Church, First Baptist Church, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, and Unity Temple. The Talmud Torah Synagogue, built in 1925, is an impressive brick and stucco structure. One of the more unusual churches is the Hong Wanji Buddhist Temple, a simple red -brick building, with a lavishly decorated, pagoda-shaped altar within; here Sunya Pratt, said to be the first European Buddhist priestess in the United States, was ordained.

Tacoma was founded in 1870. The earliest recorded exploration of the area was made by Captain George Vancouver, who in 1792 sailed his ship up the Sound and named the magnificent mountain peak Rainier, in honor of Peter Rainier, later an admiral in the British Navy. Another early explorer was Lieutenant Cadwalader Ringgold of the Wilkes Expedition, who on May 15, 1841, at the beginning of his surveys, charted and named Commencement Bay.

During the nineteenth century the westward march of pioneers, hungry for land, for independence, and for freedom from heavy taxes and high interest rates, had moved steadily forward, halted neither by the Indians nor by forests, swamps, mountains, or deserts. Some of the newcomers, after following the Oregon Trail to its western terminus in the Willamette Valley, crossed the Columbia and pushed northward through trackless forests. Others made their way by a more northerly route through the Cascade Mountains, and still others made the perilous trip around the Horn. In 1853 the first ox-train, consisting of 29 wagons, struggled through the Naches Pass by a route which was very difficult. Some of these hardy adventurers, both family groups and single men, settled around Parkland.

One of the early settlers of Tacoma was Nicholas De Lin, a Swede, who arrived on April 1, 1852, and who shortly thereafter started the first industrial development of the new settlement. With the assistance of a few friends, he cleared land near the end of Gallagher's Gulch, at the junction of two creeks, and built a small sawmill. Soon he was cutting lumber with a water-driven saw, the mill being capable of cutting 2,000 board feet a day, if conditions were favorable. It is reported that curious Puyallups had to be pushed away so that the men could work. Within a year DeLin shipped a cargo of lumber to San Francisco on the brig George Emory, which had waited several months for this first cargo.

The War of 1855 had checked the growth of the small community for a short time. The Puyallups and Muckleshoots had always been friendly and peaceful, but when one day a small boy of the community came scurrying to report strange goings on in the longhouse—-Indians from across the mountains, excited speeches, a war dance, and a whispered warning from an Indian boy who said to him, "Klat-a-wa' " ("Go hence !")—the little band of settlers took heed to the warning and hurriedly loaded a cow and, under cover of darkness, made their way to Fort Steilacoom. It was not long, however, before the war ended, (about 22 months) and the Commencement Bay band were forced to a reservation and to leave the shore of the bay that they had called home for centuries to the European settlers.

Immediately after the war, DeLin with his family returned to Tacoma and he worked his little mill until 1861, when he sold it and moved to Portland. Job Carr, in 1864, homesteaded land on a site which was called "Chebaulip," by the Puyallups. Today this place is known as Old Town. An interesting man was Job Carr, and a most unusual pioneer, who neither smoked, chewed, nor drank, and who insisted on wearing a wig even in this wilderness. If we can believe accounts, his emphatic exclamation was, "Well, I'll be consarned." Upon his claim he built a fine cabin for himself and his children; this cabin was moved to Point Defiance Park, as a memento of the log-cabin days.

But much of the credit for promoting the settlement of Tacoma should go to General Morton Matthew McCarver, one of those who followed the pioneers westward and made a business of staking out tracts in the wilderness, giving names to nonexistent streets and selling "cities" to land-hungry people. Having heard of Chebaulip from DeLin in Port land, and seeing the advantage of holding title to lands that would be needed as terminus for the Northern Pacific Railway, McCarver traveled to Commencement Bay, looked the site over, bought Job Carr's home stead, and with partners acquired additional land. Then having renamed the settlement Tacoma, he proceeded to boost it as a town with a future. Almost at once the settlers responded to the enthusiastic promotion of McCarver and his associates.

A factor of considerable importance was the revival of the lumbering interest. In 1869 a group of San Francisco businessmen had sent a scout north to look for a mill site; and as a result of his report on the Tacoma location, "the best I've seen," the Hanson and Ackerman Mill was constructed. This started Tacoma toward its future as the lumber capital of the world. Moreover, the advent of the mill started a small-scale boom. Construction workers were followed by mill hands, loggers, shop keepers, mechanics, bartenders, many bringing their wives and families with them.

The village now became a regular port of call for the mail steamer, which before had passed it by. Telegraph connections were obtained, and the first electric lights on Puget Sound flickered at the mill. Other building was stimulated by the advent of the mill and the influx of settlers in search of jobs. So sudden and so great was the in crease in business that a distinct shortage of currency occurred, and to meet this emergency the Hanson and Ackerman Company issued hammered-metal discs and rectangles to be used locally as a medium of exchange, these circulated briskly and served as a usable means of ex changing goods and services.

During the 1870's Tacoma began to develop its community activities. In 1870 the name of the town appeared for the first time on a map of the State issued by Hazard Stevens. At about the same time the post office was moved from its inadequate quarters in Job Carr's cabin to the mill office, and the jail, which had been housed in a livery stable, was transferred to a building constructed of two-by-four scantlings for the special purpose of detention of lawbreakers. St. Peter's Church, which claimed to have the oldest bell tower in the United States - a 500-year old tree trunk - was built in 1873. A hotel and a saloon were opened, and it is said that the "swearing Deacon,” regularly on Sunday nights, would put his head over the swinging doors of the saloon and shouted, “I want every damn one of you to come to church tonight; and you'll each put fifty cents in the collection plate."

The year 1873 was a red-letter one in Tacoma history. On July 14th, McCarver, who had clung to his idea that the Northern Pacific Railway would select the town for its terminus, and who had before continued to buy up land as a speculation venture until he held some 2,000 acres, received a telegram announcing the selection of Tacoma for the terminus. Great was the excitement of the town's 200 inhabitants, even though it was soon revealed that the railroad had decided to locate about a mile and a half south of the town.

This is when New Tacoma started among stumps and logs; but within a short time, before the rails were laid into town, a paper could write; "Three new stores, one black smith shop, and legions of whiskey mills have sprung into existence in New Tacoma since the announcement of the terminus, and are going full blast. The Johnson Bros. of Seattle, have moved their extensive stock up here; and in a few days the firm of Hoffman and Frost, of Olympia, will move their tin and hardware establishment to Tacoma." The Pierce County Commissioners authorized the formation of a city government; Thomas Prosch brought the Pacific Tribune from Olympia to Old Tacoma; a doctor came to town, a drugstore was started, more and bigger ships came into the bay, and the first postmaster of New Tacoma, W. H. Fife, was appointed.

But 1873 was the year of a panic, whose waves swept westward as far as the village on Commencement Bay. Construction of the Northern Pacific Railway stopped 20 miles south of Tacoma, when the crash swept away most of the investment funds held by Jay Cooke and fellow promoters. The company's contract with the Government called for completion of the line before the end of the year 1873, and to fulfill the contract the 250 European workers and 750 Chinese were called upon to continue work in spite of the fact that a sum of some $10,000 in back wages was due them. They refused to work. When threatened they threw up barricades and said, "Nobody moves this train until we get paid." The men were quickly paid, and on December 16, 1873, the western end of the line from Kalama to Tacoma was completed. The event was celebrated with much speech making, and in the evening, when the train pulled out with its first load of passengers, furs, and fish, the Indians stood in awe of the "hy-as' chick chick" which translates to "large wagon."

Tacoma now began to draw upon the rich resources of the area. Industrial development was stimulated by the advent of the railway, and increased profits made new financing comparatively simple. Coal mines were opened up at Wilkeson in 1875, and after the completion of a spur railroad line in 1878, between 100 and 150 tons of coal were mined daily. Giant coal bunkers were built along the bayside, Tacoma becoming the most important coaling station on the Pacific Coast. Logging operations moved farther into the woods, and the drone of sawmills be came a familiar sound.

A flour mill, a salmon cannery, and machine shops were established. The population grew, and soon the little cluster of scattered houses became a compact settlement, with a seminary, several churches, more than a score of saloons, a chamber of commerce, and a combine of workers under the banner of the Knights of Labor. Cultural activities also flourished; the first literary society was organized with R. A. Chilberg as president, additional newspapers appeared, and a branch of the YMCA was established. Finally, in 1884, Old Tacoma and New Tacoma were consolidated with a total population of about 4,400, and late in the same year New Tacoma was officially recognized as Tacoma.

The early 1880's were marked by unemployment, as the completion of construction work on the railroad had thrown many out of work, and here as elsewhere there was at times a surplus of workers, who were coming in increasing numbers to the new country. The rising dissatisfaction among the workers was sharpened by the preference of some employers for cheap Chinese labor. European workers objected and turned upon the Chinese, mistakenly holding them responsible for the situation. The widespread feeling crystallized in the organization of the Law and Order League, which on November 5, 1885, forcibly deported the Chinese "without disorder." Later 27 citizens, including some city officials, were brought to trial on charges of participating in the incident, but were later acquitted.

The next few years were marked by considerable expansion. Speedier and less costly connections with Eastern and Middle Western buyers were sought by leading townsmen. Served only by a spur from the Northern Pacific Railway's new terminus at Portland, the city set out to get direct transcontinental connections. In 1886 work was started on the Stampede Pass Tunnel, over which it was planned to project tracks for a connection with the eastern section of the Nation. Meanwhile, a switchback had been built over the summit of the Cascade Range, and the first train to travel this temporary route reached Tacoma on June 6, 1887. Inauguration of direct transcontinental service on July 3 fulfilled hopes born 20 years before. Tacomans celebrated the connection with three days of revelry.

The new rail connection resulted in a phenomenal growth of Tacoma enterprise. The lumber industry was advancing in seven-league boots, production figures soaring to 87,000,000 board feet for the year 1887. Technological improvements swelled the output, the railroads not only furnishing access to new markets but also using thousands of ties. The St. Paul and Tacoma Company was organized; it purchased some 80,000 acres of timberland and started to turn out lumber on a large scale.

Eastern Washington wheat, which previously had been shipped through Portland, was brought to Tacoma for milling and shipment to Pacific Coast ports; flour mills, warehouses, and grain elevators appeared as if by magic upon the reclaimed tideflats; a smelter was built, new docks were constructed, and steamships and sailing vessels in increasing numbers made Tacoma a regular port of call. The mines shipped more than 212,000 tons of coal during the autumn of 1887. Rail transportation was further improved the following year by the completion of the Stampede Pass Tunnel and the Northern Pacific's establishment of general offices in Tacoma.

People flocked into what they envisaged as the coming metropolis. Between 1885 and 1890, the population increased from less than 7,000 to 36,000, and the city found it necessary to improvise shelter for the newcomers. Real-estate prices soared, and speculation was rife. During the fall of 1887, some 11,200 children crowded the schools. The Annie Wright Seminary, a private preparatory school for girls, was founded in 1884. (Present building was erected in 1925). Stores and offices multiplied on the slopes; 1,016 buildings were constructed in 1888, and the cornerstone was laid for the College of Puget Sound.

Most pretentious of the new buildings was the Tacoma Hotel, designed by Stanford White, which was completed at a cost of $267,000. As in other towns marked by rapid growth and easy money, Tacoma had its dives and its honky-tonks. One of the most famous was Harry Morgan's Gambling House and Comique Theater, with bar, dance hall, and variety of methods for separating a drink-befuddled customer from his money. An underground passage to the water front was reputedly used for smuggling narcotics and shanghaiing sailors, or for quick getaways when trouble threatened. Morgan, shrewd and ruthless, controlled local politics for several years

Tacoma politics were lively during these days, with much concern over vice and gambling and much personal rivalry. Other issues were also debated with considerable heat. The Union Labor Party appeared and split upon the question of whether its platform should advocate anarchism or socialism. Conservative Democrats and Republicans joined forces to defeat the Union Labor Party, whose platform included among other proposals a demand for public ownership of street railways, water works, power, ferries, and the right to recall public officials.

The labor party was defeated in 1888, after a violent campaign, but today many of the measures it stood for are in operation. Tacoma was on the way toward outshining all other Puget Sound ports, when the crash came in 1893. Of 28 banks only 7 survived. "The commercial universe seemed to be but a house of cards," wrote a local historian. Townspeople "picked blackberries, sawed wood, and dug clams for a livelihood," and building owners became janitors.

The Tacoma Trades Council held unemployed demonstrations, a detachment of 600 men marched out of town to join Coxey's Army on its march on Washington, and a Pierce County Farmers' Alliance sent delegates to the Populist Party Convention at Ellensburg. Although panic had a sobering effect on the expansion of industry, factories of various kinds, foundries, machine shops, and many small enterprises were established during the 1890's, and the town still looked hopefully towards the future. Observing the Northern Pacific's profitable monopoly with Tacoma, the Great Northern and the Union Pacific extended competing lines to the city. The Northern Pacific established repair shops at Edison, now South Tacoma.

The discovery of gold in Alaska put an end to the crisis, and for a short time the future again was rosy. Then Tacoma slowly began to lose ground. The Great Northern Railway acquired control of the Northern Pacific, the Oriental Line was given up, the grain export market was shifted to Seattle; oil replaced coal as fuel for ships, and the coal bunkers were idle. Except for an occasional boat coming to the smelter, the Alaska trade had vanished.

Small logging camps and saw-mills slowly gave way to large timber interests, backed by Eastern capital. The citizens of Tacoma were dumbfounded but not ready to admit that their plans for the future had been mere dreams. Agitation for a port commission with provision for modern, municipally owned docks properly equipped and open to shipments at reasonable charges, finally was successful; and the establishment of the Port of Tacoma piers brought some revival of trade. Neighborhood improvement clubs and civic-minded individuals successfully worked for city water works and city power system. These and other measures regained for Tacoma some of the lost ground. The First World War boom in shipbuilding and trade, and the activity resulting from the proximity of Fort Lewis, brought considerable increase in business and industrial development.

With this upswing in business came a tremendous rise in the cost of living. This condition stimulated widespread unionization among the workers, which was climaxed in 1918 by the general Northwest lumber strike. The agreement that ended the strike in Tacoma granted the eight-hour day and other improved conditions. Again in January 1919, during the Puget Sound shipyard strike involving 40,000 men, 14,000 struck in Tacoma. Some concessions were granted, the strike was called off, and the men went back to work.

The years following the first world war were marked by general disillusionment; the number of unemployed grew, and times were hard. The Farmer-Labor Party was organized in Tacoma and the State in 1921, and during this period the feeling for industrial unionism grew. So militant did Tacoma labor become that Samuel Gompers, national president of the American Federation of Labor, threatened to withdraw the charter of the Tacoma Central Labor Council.

This threat and the fact that the Coolidge boom was under way brought a decline in the labor movement; the wood-working unions all but ceased to exist. During these years Tacoma once more stirred with intense activity. The blackboard room in the Rust Building was crowded with speculators, $4,000,000 in new industry located in the city, ships lined the wharves, and the stores were doing a rushing business. Bobbed hair, short skirts, prohibition, bootleg liquor, marathons, flagpole sitters, the Charleston, the new Ford, the talkies, installment buying — a dizzy succession of changes blinded most people to the day of reckoning which was coming, a day forecast in growing unemployment and a nervous, speculative market.

Then came 1929 and Black Friday, followed by the years of steadily deepening depression. Tacoma was hard hit. Both lumbering and shipping went into a slump, and, unlike previous depressions when the construction of a railroad, the Alaska gold rush, and the World War had pulled the city out, this depression persisted. "Help Wanted" signs disappeared, and armies of unemployed began a desperate search for jobs. Self-help movements, communal gardening, woodcutting, collective begging were instituted.

Then the city slowly began to revive as the national deflationary trend was halted. The demand for lumber increased and prices rose. Some of the unemployed went back to work, and others received a measure of subsistence from direct relief or from jobs created by the Works Progress Administration. (Like the book this article is from) Tacoma achieved a measure of recovery, and in 1940 was a regular port of call for several steamship lines; and had a water front with 67 piers and wharves (according to 1938 report of War Department), the largest of which is owned by the Port of Tacoma; it has a municipally owned power plant, which distributes electricity at one of the lowest rates in the United States; it has a fine school system, many churches of various denominations, excellent hospital facilities, and many social and cultural dubs; it has beautiful parks and golf courses, and lies within easy distance of a great outdoor playground. The hopes of the booming 1890's had faded; but the "City of Destiny" has re-adjusted itself to the slower pace, as it sees more dearly how its future is bound up with the State and the Nation.

According to the 1938 report prepared by the Board of Engineers of the War Department and the United States Maritime Commission, the volume of water-borne commerce during the period 1925-36 averaged 3,876,491 short tons a year; of the port's total traffic, nearly 78 per cent was accounted for by coastwise shipments and receipts and local traffic (26%), with the lumber industry comprising by far the greater part. The report concludes as follows: "It seems only reasonable to expect that with the greatly improved terminals and the steadily increasing traffic, the port will become a more important gateway not only to the port area and its immediate hinterland but also to the entire country served by the northern railroad systems. "With its present and proposed equipment, its railroad facilities, and its increasing commerce, it is believed that the port will become a more important factor in the development of the commerce of the country."