Tacoma, Washington

“ About 700 or 800 Negroes live in Tacoma; 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 Oriental people, and they peddle their fresh and brightly colored produce about the streets. ”

“ The former has the advantage of being the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and of having large private capital to advance its interests. These have made the town all that it is. It is handsomely laid out, and well built. It has an elegant hotel, and a population said in Tacoma to be 12,000, and in Seattle to be 7,500. The harbor has water enough, but the landing is bad; there being no level ground available for wharves or business houses near the water. A mere roadway, cut out of the high bluff, furnishes the only line of communication. ”

“ If Mount Hood can claim to be considered, as is generally admitted, the most graceful and beautiful mountain on the Pacific coast, Mount Tacoma can certainly claim to be the most majestic and sublime. Towering 14,444 feet above sea-level, and thus exceeding by more than 3,000 feet the height of any other mountain in Washington or Oregon, it seems to rear its massive head close to the very battlements of heaven. No other mountain, even in the Yellowstone National Park or in the main range of the Rockies, will have produced so great an impression upon the traveler as will the mighty Tacoma. ”

“ On its lower mile the dense fir-woods cover it with never-changing green; on its next half-mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place in winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of the great ice age still linger in unspotted purity. The people of Washington Territory say that their mountain is the great "King-pin of the Universe," which shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not without honor. ”

“ Fish are caught in quantities and shipped to eastern markets, but Pierce county's greatest natural wealth is in its vast forests. An idea of the value can be had when it is said that $6,000,000 worth of lumber was cut in 1908 in Tacoma alone. In addition to these great natural resources, Pierce county's commercial industries are so great as to place it in the front rank of counties of the Northwest. The great sawmills, woodworking plants and factories of various kinds in the city of Tacoma alone employ 11,800 people, and the value of their output last year amounted to over $43,000,000.00. ”

“ The Puget Sound Group of Northwest Painters was organized in 1928 and had 40 members at the end of its tenth year. Tacoma, with the Ferry Museum, established while Washington was still a territory, has felt no inclination to acknowledge Seattle as a cultural superior. To the south, San Francisco with its metropolitan bigness and power and its cosmopolitan manners claimed leadership in every enterprise. On familiar terms with artists and dealers, San Franciscans frequented downtown galleries during noon hours; and the people of Washington were advised to cultivate this habit. ”

“ On October 27th, the governor visited Tacoma and addressed a mass meeting of its people, and on the following day received a letter from a prominent resident of that city, assuring him that “there is not a man in Tacoma who does not fully recognize the difficulty of the position in which you are placed by the prevailing agitation, and the patient good sense with which you have up to the present, met and surmounted that difficulty. ”

“ Newspaper plants were developing into great enterprises; heavy expenditures were involved.
Some of the larger contemporary papers, strengthened by consolidation during this period, have continued to expand their circulation and to modernize their equipment and methods. The Tacoma News and the Tacoma Tribune, which began publication in 1908, united in 1918 as the News-Tribune of today. The Tacoma Times was founded in 1903. In Seattle, the Post-Intelligencer, descended from the city's first newspaper, the Gazette, founded in 1863, was sold to W. R. Hearst in 1922. ”

“ The city of Tacoma is engaged in the construction of a plant on the Nisqually for municipal use, the capacity of which will be 20,000 horse-power. The 12,000 horse-power plant at Snoqualmie Falls also furnishes current for city lighting, street railway and manufacturing purposes in Tacoma.
All the cereals are successfully raised; dairying is one of the most important industries; fruit-growing, particularly in small fruits, such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries, etc., is very profitable and is engaging a great deal of attention. ”

“ Regional exhibitions have served to support and encourage artists, and, by prompting discussion in the press, have tended to improve the quality of public taste. Recent activity, centering in Seattle, includes the annual exhibitions of Northwest artists, the monthly one-man exhibitions arranged by the Seattle Art Museum, and the shows of the Group of Twelve and of the Women Painters of Washington. Tacoma is also on the rise as an art center, with its organization of artists, the exhibitions arranged by the Tacoma Art Association. ”

“ Moreover, in its briefs in the Court of Appeals, the State urged reversal of the Commission's order on the grounds that the City 'has not shown, nor could it show, that (it) has availed itself of * * * any right to take or destroy the property of the State of Washington (and that) Tacoma, as a creature of the State of Washington, cannot act (under the license) in opposition to the policy of the State or in derogation of its laws.' (Emphasis added.) ”

“ Tacoma is also the largest flour milling center west of Minneapolis and the fifth city in exports and imports on the coast. Miles of unsurpassed highway lead south through a vast natural park consisting of broad prairies dotted with lakes and covered with groves of oak trees; or southeast into the famous Puyallup Valley fruit and berry district. Its improved parks comprise 1,120 acres, 640 of which constitute Point Defiance park at northern extremity of peninsula, and 30 acres, Wright Park in center of city, having 3,000 trees and shrubs in 350 different varieties. ”

“ Tacna (14) , capital of a province (32) in North Chile, 38 m. N. of Arica, with which it is connected by rail; trades in wool and minerals; taken from Peru in 1883.
Tacoma (38) , a flourishing manufacturing town and port of Washington State, on Puget Sound; has practically sprung into existence within the last 15 years, and is the outlet for the produce of a rich agricultural and mining district. ”

“ It is a pleasant journey of 150 miles through the pine forests from Portland to Tacoma. Any one of the splendid steamers of the Union Pacific may be taken for a trip to Victoria. Leaving Tacoma in the morning, we sail over that noble sheet of water, Puget Sound. The hills on either side are darkly green, the Sound widening slowly as we go. Seattle is reached in three hours, a busy town of 35,000 people, full of vim, push, and energy. Twenty million dollars' worth of property went up in flame and smoke in Seattle's great fire of June 6, 1889. ”

“ The loudest buzz of commercialism is to be heard on the east shores, where fertile valleys and sightly plateaus checkered with farms and gardens stretch away to the foot hills of the Cascade Mountains, comprising five of the most densely populated counties in the state. Here, too, are four of Washington's five largest cities, Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and Bellingham, each the center of a rich territory supporting numerous smaller cities. ”

“ The Olympics complete the view toward the west while the Cascades on the east are overshadowed by Mt. Rainier (or Mt. Tacoma) , which seems to rise from within city limits. A complete system of parks, play grounds and boulevards add to the natural beauty. The residence portion of the city overlooks an extensive manufacturing section which claims the largest meat packing establishment in the west, the largest grain warehouse in the world, and the largest smelter west of Butte City, with one of the tallest cement smokestacks in the world. ”

“ The Washington shingle is absolutely perfect, being cut from timber without a knot or flaw, and of regulation size. Hence, with their other good qualities they are much desired by builders. The North Pacific Consolidated Company shipped in 1889—its first year of business—fifteen hundred car-loads, valued at four hundred and ten thousand dollars. The first train left Tacoma on the 12th of August, with colors flying and amid the cheering of spectators. ”

“ Washington is only a way-station in his travels, and the splendors and liberties of court life are reserved for Alaska. Appearing at Tacoma during the last week in April, demure companies of Golden-crowns may not infrequently be seen associated with migrating Nuttalls. They are in no hurry, or perhaps the haste of midnight flight is over when we see them yawning sleepily in the bushes of a morning. They are languid too as they deploy upon the park lawns, always within reach of cover, in search of fallen seeds or lurking beetles. ”

“ The Northern Pacific Railway, then under construction, was well on its way across the continent; and townfolk were hopeful that its terminus might be established at Seattle. With this expectation business doubled, population increased rapidly, valuable land, water-front track- age, $50,000 cash, and $200,000 in bonds were pledged in support of the venture. After months of negotiations and tense anticipation Seattle learned, however, that Tacoma had been selected as the terminal. ”

“ The State's Directors of Fisheries and of Game, acting through an Assistant Attorney General of the State, filed an answer and also a cross-complaint (reasserting substantially the same objections that they and the State had made before the Commission, and that had been made in, and rejected by, the Court of Appeals on their petition for review) to which the City demurred. The judge of the Superior Court sustained the Taxpayers' demurrer and dismissed the suit. [12] Tacoma appealed to the Supreme Court of Washington. ”

“ Aloysius Church in Spokane, built in the nineties by Preusse and Zittel. During this same period Stanford White, of McKim, Mead and White, designed the Tacoma Theater and the Tacoma Hotel, which was destroyed by fire in 1935. The theater building is in the style of the Norman chateau. The buildings of the Western Washington College at Bellingham, opened in 1899, are good adaptations of the Romanesque. While the Richardsonian style was not adapted to frame structures, it did influence residential architecture in the State, as elsewhere ”

“ It is well enough to have trees on the land and mines in the earth; but trees will be cut down and mines be dug out, and the only thing that lasts is good soil in the hands of good husbandmen. I thank you most sincerely. [Cheers.]
[413]
TACOMA, WASHINGTON, MAY 6.
Ten thousand cheers greeted the arrival of the President at Tacoma Wednesday morning. Gov. Elisha P. Ferry, Mayor Geo. B. Kandle, and Judge Wm. H. Calkins, at the head of the following Committee of Reception, met the party: Gen. John W. Sprague, Samuel Collyer, Colonel Garretson, Judge Allyn, Hon. M. Hill, Mrs. ”

“ The Green River Group.—I include in this group the Black Diamond and Franklin collieries, the Kirke or Moss Bay Company mines, and the Sugar Loaf Mountain beds. This, as well as the Carbon River field, is nearly equidistant from Tacoma and Seattle, being about thirty miles in a right line from each place. ”

“ Since the eighties, Washington has had a varied and culturally influential foreign press. Groups in Seattle, Tacoma, Bellingham, Everett, and South Bend, in particular, have been served by newspapers in their own languages, and most numerous among these are the German and Scandinavian journals. In 1938 Seattle had Italian, Japanese, Negro, Jewish, Swedish, German, and Norwegian-Danish papers; in Spokane only the Svenska Pressen, Swedish and English, survives, and in Tacoma, the Western Viking, Norwegian and English. ”

“ The business district, compact with modern structures and trim shops, has an air of prosperity and leisure. The city began as a settlement around a warehouse beside a railroad track in 1873, when the Northern Pacific built northward from Kalama to Tacoma, and ignored Claquato, then the county seat, three miles to the west. Some settlers in the vicinity decided that, if the railroad would not go to the county seat, the seat must go to the railroad. ”

“ Now the once formidable range has been tunnelled and will no longer form a serious barrier between the interior portion of Washington and the coast.
Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett have grown up on the sound as important commercial and manufacturing cities, and will, on account of their favorable situation, receive their share of the commerce of the Pacific. The cities of the sound are particularly well situated for intercourse and commerce with Alaska and northeastern Asia. ”

“ The agitation which began in Seattle and Tacoma in the summer of 1885, had gradually spread to other towns and villages in the western part of the territory, and to the coal mines in King County, in a few of which the Chinamen were working, when on September 4th, the people at Rock Springs, Wyoming, drove the Chinamen out of the coal mines at that place, killing eleven of them. News of this outrage was applauded by the agitators, and those who were accustomed to listen to them. ”

“ Throughout the Cascade range several prominent peaks tower above the others like giants among dwarfs. The loftiest by far is Mount Rainier (or Mount Tacoma) , second highest mountain in the United States proper, 14,408 feet in altitude and the chief mountain resort out of Seattle and Tacoma; Mount Adams, 12,307 feet, on the boundary line of Skamania and Yakima counties; Mount St. Helens, 9,697 feet high, at the western edge of Skamania county, reached from Castle Rock or Vancouver; Mount Baker, 10,730 feet, forty miles from Bellingham and one of its main attractions ”