Tacoma: Electric City of the Pacific Coast, 1904

By Author	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Title	[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z \| Other Symbols ]
By Language

Download this book: [ ASCII ]

Look for this book on Amazon

We have new books nearly every day.
If you would like a news letter once a week or once a month fill out this form and we will give you a summary of the books for that week or month by email.

Title: Tacoma: Electric City of the Pacific Coast, 1904
Author: Pratt, Louis W.
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.

*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Tacoma: Electric City of the Pacific Coast, 1904" ***

This book is indexed by ISYS Web Indexing system to allow the reader find any word or number within the document.

PACIFIC COAST, 1904 ***

[Illustration:

TACOMA

ELECTRIC CITY
OF THE
PACIFIC COAST

1904
]

Tacoma Chamber of Commerce and Board of Trade

OFFICERS AND TRUSTEES 1903-4

WILLIAM JONES, _President_.

A. F. ALBERTSON, _Vice President_.

HENRY A. RHODES, _Treasurer_.

J. S. WHITEHOUSE, _Secretary_.

JOSHUA PEIRCE
CHARLES BEDFORD
GEORGE W. FOWLER
JESSE S. JONES
THOMAS B. WALLACE
E. J. FELT
S. R. BALKWILL
WM. H. SNELL
R. L. McCORMICK
ALEXANDER TINLING
WILLIAM VIRGES
R. G. HUDSON

This pamphlet is issued by the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce and Board of
Trade. Its object is to present reliable information concerning Tacoma
and to interest in this city those who desire a location on the Pacific
Slope in which to engage in business, manufacturing or shipping, or a
desirable place in which to live.

The information herein contained is reliable and the statistics are
official and up-to-date.

Further or special information of any character will be cheerfully
furnished upon application to the

SECRETARY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
TACOMA, WASH.

MADE IN TACOMA——
HALF-TONES BY TACOMA ENGRAVING CO.
PRESS OF ALLEN & LAMBORN PRINTING CO.

TACOMA—1904

BY LOUIS W. PRATT.

Tacoma, the Electric City of the Pacific Coast, and the chief seaport
of the North Pacific, is situated at the head of ocean navigation on
Puget Sound in latitude 47° 15´ north and longitude 122° 25´ west from
Greenwich. Being further north than Duluth or Quebec, Tacoma is supposed
by many to be bleak and cold. A popular misapprehension among Eastern
people seems to be that Puget Sound is somewhere near Alaska and that for
half of the year the people contend with snow and ice.

CLIMATE AND HEALTH.

The climate of the Pacific Slope west of the Cascade Mountains is
tempered by the Pacific Ocean, the “Japan current” and the equable
southwesterly winds. The climate resembles that of Western Europe rather
than that of the American Continent east of the Rocky Mountains. Tacoma
is four degrees further south than London, in about the same latitude
as Nantes, the chief city of Brittany, near the mouth of the Loire. The
climate of Puget Sound is warmer in winter and cooler in summer than that
of Southern England, and is the most equable, salubrious and delightful
to be found in the United States.

[Illustration: Eleventh Street at Pacific Avenue.]

TACOMA’S winters are open, the grass is green and flowers bloom out of
doors every month in the year. Last winter the temperature fell below the
freezing point (32° above zero, Fahrenheit), on one day in November, six
days in December, three days in January, five days in February and eight
days in March. The minimum temperature on the coldest day in November was
28° above zero; in December, 29°; in January, 26°; in February, 23°; and
in March, 29°. It would be more accurate to speak of the “winter” months
as the “rainy season,” for one-half of the annual precipitation, which
amounted to 45.11 inches in 1903, an amount slightly above the average
rainfall, fell during the three months of January, November and December.
TACOMA has little snow and no ice. Cyclones or furious winds, in this
peculiarly sheltered region between the Olympics and the Cascades, are
unknown.

[Illustration: City Hall. Pierce County Court House.]

TACOMA’S summer climate is equally free from extremes. The temperature
rarely rises to 80° Fahrenheit on summer afternoons. In the summer of
1903, for example, the mercury rose to 80° on only three days in June,
two days in July, once in August and once in September. The nights
are always cool, the days bright and balmy. Thunder and lightning are
exceedingly rare occurrences. Nowhere in the world is the climate more
conducive to health, longevity, exhilaration of mind and body, and to the
production of flowers, fruits, forests and crops in greater abundance and
variety.

TACOMA is one of the healthiest cities in the world. The number of deaths
during the last census year was 425, indicating an annual death rate of
11.3 per 1,000, which is fully one-third less than the average annual
death rate for the United States, 17.4 per 1,000, and almost the lowest
reported from any one of the registration cities of the country. Since
1900 the death rate at TACOMA has decreased. The total number of deaths
for twelve months ending June 30, 1904, was 520. The population of the
city has increased 60 per cent. since the last federal census was taken
and the annual death rate does not now exceed 8.67 per 1,000. Tacoma may
fairly claim to be the healthiest city in the world.

[Illustration: Tacoma in 1871.]

DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS.

TACOMA is the youngest of the maritime cities of the United States. It
is situated on one of the finest harbors in the world. It is the leading
seaport of Puget Sound, the gateway to the Orient and Alaska. It is
second only to San Francisco on the Pacific Coast in the volume and
value of its foreign commerce. It is the chief Pacific Coast port for
steamship lines maintaining regular sailings between TACOMA and Japan,
Asiatic Russia, China and Manila; between TACOMA and London, Liverpool
and Glasgow by way of the Orient, Suez Canal and the Mediterranean, the
longest regular steamship route in the world; and between TACOMA and
Hamburg, the chief seaport of Continental Europe, by way of Mexican,
Central and South American ports. TACOMA is in direct, regular steamship
communication with Alaska, San Francisco, Honolulu and New York. TACOMA
is the western headquarters and chief Pacific Coast terminal of the
Northern Pacific railway and the headquarters and western terminal of the
Tacoma Eastern railroad, the most important independent railway in the
State and the tourist route to Paradise Valley and Mount Tacoma. TACOMA
handles the largest railway freight traffic of any city in the Pacific
Northwest. It is the center and operating point of a system of city,
suburban, and interurban electric railways, with 135 miles of track.
It is the chief emporium, manufacturing and distributing point for the
leading staple products of the forests, farms, mines and waters of the
State of Washington and Alaska, and the “Inland Empire,” the valleys of
the Upper Columbia and Snake Rivers in Eastern Washington and Idaho,
between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains. It is the chief
wheat exporting and flour milling city of the Pacific Coast. It is the
first city of the Pacific Northwest in manufactures. It is the electric
city of the Pacific Coast with natural power resources unequalled at
any city in America except Niagara Falls. It is the “home City” of the
North Pacific Coast, and possesses scenic attractions which evoked from
Sir Henry Irving the declaration that TACOMA has the most beautiful
situation and environment of all the cities he had visited in the world.
It is an educational, literary, musical and social center, with several
institutions of higher learning, a Public Library, a famous Museum, 800
acres of parks of surpassing beauty, broad streets, fine public and
private buildings, theaters, hotels, churches, hospitals, charitable and
benevolent institutions and a rapidly growing population of enterprising,
prosperous and hospitable people.

TACOMA’S ORIGIN AND NAME.

TACOMA dates its birth from July 14, 1873. On that day the commissioners
appointed to locate the Puget Sound terminal of the Northern Pacific
railway decided to recommend as such a point on the south side of
Commencement Bay, in township twenty-one, range three east of the
Willamette meridian. Commencement Bay was the largest and best sheltered
harbor to be found on Puget Sound and was accessible by easy grades for
railways from the north, south and east, and by several easy passes
over the great Cascade Mountain range. Into the bay flows the Puyallup
River, fed by the eternal glaciers of Mount Tacoma, the giant dome of
snow whose image Theodore Winthrop found “displaced in the blue depths
of tranquil waters” in the bay. The shore line of the bay, stretching
ten miles from Brown’s Point at the northeast to Point Defiance at the
northwest was at the time referred to unbroken by human habitations, save
a hamlet clustering about a saw mill on the west shore of the bay, a view
of which, from a photograph taken in 1871, is presented on the opposite
page. In 1870 the federal census enumerator had found seventy-three
inhabitants at TACOMA.

[Illustration: Tacoma in 1904.

1—City and Mount Tacoma from Harbor.
2—Looking South from City Hall Tower.
3—Manufacturing District East of City Waterway.
4—Tacoma from McKinley Park.
]

In the Ferry Museum is the original plat or sub-division of some lands
near the saw mill. It is entitled a map of lots at “Commencement City,”
but a line is drawn through this name and the word “TACOMA” substituted.
The owners of the land discussed the name “Commencement City” in
the officers’ room of a Portland bank and rejected it as an awkward
designation. They preferred instead the euphoneous Indian name of the
mountain which rises majestically to a height of 14,526 feet southeast
of the bay and commands the site of the city that was to be erected
apparently at its very base. When President Roosevelt was Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, he selected TACOMA as the name of a new cruiser,
remarking that in his judgment the name should have been adopted as the
name of the State, instead of Washington.

The selection of TACOMA in 1873 as the terminus of the Northern Pacific
railway sealed its destiny as a great city. During the same year a
section of the road was completed and opened extending from the north
bank of the Columbia River at Kalama to TACOMA. The largest towns at
that time in the Pacific Northwest were Portland and Victoria. The route
between the two was by river steamer from Portland to Kalama, thence by
rail to TACOMA, and thence by sound steamer to Victoria and intermediate
points, Seattle being the largest town on the route. Fourteen years,
however, elapsed before the main transcontinental line of the Northern
Pacific crossed the Cascades and entered TACOMA from the east.

GROWTH IN POPULATION.

TACOMA’S population, according to the federal census, the annual school
census, the directory lists, and other accepted bases of calculation, has
increased as follows:

City City and
Limits. Suburbs.
1870 73
1880 1,098
1900 37,714 42,311
1904 60,250 67,405

[Illustration: Mount Tacoma from Point Defiance.]

The figures for 1870, 1880 and 1900 above quoted are from the federal
census. The number of names of individuals, exclusive of all names of
firms, corporations, buildings and the like, in the city directory for
1900, published by R. L. Polk & Co., was 16,951. The district canvassed
for the city directory includes the immediate suburbs, which are to all
intents and purposes a part of the community. The ratio between the
number of names in the directory of 1900 and the population of the city
and immediate suburbs, as shown by the last federal census, was 1 to 2½.
The number of names of individuals in the TACOMA city directory in 1900
and subsequent years with the population as indicated by the use of the
multiplier 2½ is as follows:

Names in Estimated
Year. City Directory. Population.
1900 16,951 *42,372
1901 20,418 51,045
1902 22,186 55,455
1903 25,057 62,642
1904 26,962 67,405

* Federal enumeration, 42,311.

[Illustration:

1—Tacoma Hotel and Totem Pole.
2—Tacoma Theatre.
3—Northern Pacific Headquarters Building.
4—Tacoma Chamber of Commerce Building.
]

This estimate of population in 1904 is confirmed by the annual school
census returns. The school census of 1904 for school district number
10, which is coextensive with the city limits, reports 13,389 children
of school age residing in the district, as compared with 9,443 in 1900.
The census of the districts contiguous to the city and embracing its
immediate suburbs show a school population in 1904 of 1,426, as compared
with 646 in 1900. The use of the multiplier 4½ applied to the school
census returns, indicates a population within the city limits in 1904 of
60,250 and in the city and its immediate suburbs of 66,667. Other cities
in the state employ a larger multiplier than 4½ to estimate population
from their school census returns. For example, Seattle applies the
multiplier 6½, and Spokane 5¾ to their school census returns in order
to confirm their liberal estimates of population. TACOMA is content to
employ a safe and conservative method of calculation.

Postoffice receipts more than confirm the foregoing estimates as to
TACOMA’S growth and present population. The receipts of the TACOMA
postoffice for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, were $113,599, as
compared with $63,928 for the year ending June 30, 1900. The increase
in postoffice receipts is at the rate of 14.7 per cent. in one year;
28.2 per cent. in two years; 53.7 per cent. in three years and 77.4 per
cent. in four years. The increase in population as above shown by an
increase of 10,011 in the number of names in the city directory is at the
considerably lower rate of 59.0 per cent. in four years.

CAUSES CONTRIBUTING TO GROWTH.

TACOMA’S rapid growth is attributable to two principal causes. First, the
industrial, and second, the commercial development of the city. There are
abundant grounds for the prediction that TACOMA will not only continue
to hold her position as the leading manufacturing city in the State
of Washington, but will rapidly become one of the greatest industrial
centers in the world. TACOMA possesses unequalled facilities for
manufacturing in several important fields of industry. The first superior
advantage is abundance of cheap power; the second is the possession or
command of the raw materials, and the third is direct transportation
facilities placing her in touch with the markets of the world.

[Illustration: Some New Buildings.

1—Masonic Temple and Hoska Building.
2—Rhodes Bros. Department Store.
3—Hyson Apartments.
4—Provident Life & Trust Company’s Building.
]

ABUNDANCE OF COAL AND COKE.

Mr. E. W. Parker, of the United States Geological Survey, who served
by appointment of President Roosevelt as one of the anthracite strike
arbitrators, recently called the attention of the Washington State
Press Association to the fact that Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado and
Washington are the chief coal-producing States in the four longitudinal
sections or belts of the United States from east to west and that each
of these States takes the lead in manufacturing among all the States in
its section. Washington has incalculable supplies of coal of excellent
quality for producing heat and generating steam. The coal is stored in
the Cascade Mountains and the mines of Pierce, Kittitas and Southern King
Counties are in close and direct railway communication with TACOMA. It
is said that the cars loaded with coal at fifty mine openings in Western
Washington, would run by gravity into TACOMA by simply unloosening
the brakes. TACOMA has huge bunkers for coaling steamships and a line
of colliers plies constantly between this port and San Francisco. The
best, if not the only coking coal yet mined in Washington is found in
abundance in Pierce County within thirty miles of TACOMA. But fuel from
the waste of the great lumber mills is so abundant and cheap in TACOMA
that the tremendous advantage of her proximity to the rich coal fields of
Washington is not as yet fully realized.

INEXHAUSTIBLE SUPPLY OF POWER.

Of even greater value than her coal as a factor in the industrial
development of TACOMA is the utilization of the enormous water power
which has its origin and source in the snow-capped and glacier-buttressed
dome of Mount Tacoma. The mountain from which TACOMA takes her name is an
inexhaustible reservoir of power whose efficiency is immeasurable. TACOMA
lies at its feet and is the natural outlet and market for its harnessed
energies.

Science has discovered the means for the conversion of water power
into electrical energy transmissible over a wire from the place of its
generation to a convenient point for its application and use. There is a
loss in transmission which increases with the distance. Therefore TACOMA,
which is the nearest seaport and railway terminal to the mountain from
whose dizzy heights torrents of water rush ceaselessly to the sea level,
is favored by her geographical position in the use of this power. There
are numerous streams which make a descent of thousands of feet within
fifty miles of the city. Capital has been enlisted and freely expended in
the work of generating power for industrial and transportation purposes,
besides current for light and heat.

[Illustration: Puget Sound Power Company’s Plant.

1—Power House, 3 Units In Operation.
2—View of Flume Line.
3—Penstock Line and Power House.
4—Placing Water Wheel and Rotor Shaft in Bearings.
5—Intake and Dam at Head Works.
]

POWER PLANT AT ELECTRON.

The largest plant in the world for the generation of electric current
by water power, with the single exception of the power plant at Niagara
Falls, has been installed during the last eighteen months by the Puget
Sound Power Company, of TACOMA, at Electron, twenty-eight miles southeast
of TACOMA, near Lake Kapowsin, on the Tacoma Eastern railroad. The work
of installing the power plant at Electron was commenced early in 1903.
The first unit of 5,000-horse power was ready for trial on April 14,
1904, and before the end of July, 1904, four 5,000-horse power units,
making a total of 20,000-horse power, were completely installed and in
commercial operation. The Puget Sound Power Company is owned by Messrs.
Stone & Webster, of Boston, who control and operate the Tacoma Railway &
Power Company, the Tacoma and Seattle Interurban railway and the Seattle
Electric Railway Company. The plant at Electron was installed in order
to furnish power for operation of the urban, suburban and interurban
railways of the Puget Sound cities and to market the surplus to other
power consumers.

A page of illustrations is here presented showing, from recent
photographs, some of the principal features of the power plant at
Electron. The water for the plant is taken from the south fork of the
Puyallup River, below its junction with the Mowich, thirty-five miles
from TACOMA and 1,800 feet above sea level. The river at this point
drains five of the largest glaciers of Mount Tacoma. A low dam has been
constructed, shown in the photograph of the headworks, whence the water
is conducted by a flume eight feet wide and eight feet deep, following
the contour of the river canyon and descending at the rate of seven feet
to the mile, ten miles and a half to a reservoir covering twenty-one
acres and averaging twenty feet in depth, on the crest of the hill above
the power house. The reservoir holds in reserve ten hours’ supply for
the power plant. The water is dropped from the reservoir to the power
house through four steel pipes or penstock lines, 1,700 feet in length,
erected on the slope of the canyon at an angle of about 45 degrees. A
fall of 887 feet and a pressure of 400 pounds to the square inch is
thus secured. Four million pounds of steel pipe were required for the
penstock line, each cylinder being four feet in diameter at the top and
reducing to two seven-inch nozzles for each pipe. The water issues from
the nozzles at a speed of about three miles a minute and is applied to
four impulse water-wheels specially constructed for the purpose. The
present electrical installation includes four generators, each of 3,500
kilowatts capacity. The flume, the reservoir, the forebay, the slope for
the penstock line and the site for the power house have been constructed
or prepared with a view of adding to the capacity of the plant. The
west wall of the power house shown in the illustration is temporary, in
contemplation of its extension and the installation of from two to four
additional 5,000-horse power units as soon as required.

The present plant is abundantly supplied with water by the flume filled
to a depth of three feet. The water passes through the flume at the rate
of seven miles an hour. There is abundance of water for the operation of
the plant in the Puyallup River at all seasons of the year, as the river
is fed by torrents from the glaciers in the dry season and by copious
rains in the winter.

[Illustration: Views in Tacoma’s Parks.

1—Superintendent Roberts’ Lodge at Point Defiance Park.
2—The Sound from Point Defiance Park.
3—Glimpse In Wright Park.
4—The Beach at Point Defiance.
5—Spanaway Park.
]

The Puget Sound Power Company, of TACOMA, has a large surplus of power
above the requirements of the electric railways controlled by Stone &
Webster. This power is already used to pump water from the new driven
wells at South TACOMA for the city of TACOMA, also to operate the great
railway construction and repair plant of the Northern Pacific railway at
South TACOMA, the new packing house plant of the Carstens Packing Company
on the tideflats, the large grain warehouses and elevators between the
Eleventh Street bridge and the Government warehouse on the city waterway,
numerous furniture factories, machine shops, pipe and iron foundries,
and a large number of stationary motors for miscellaneous enterprises
at TACOMA, besides supplying current for light and power in the valley
towns between TACOMA and Seattle and the latter city. The transmission
line from Electron to TACOMA is twenty-eight miles in length, while the
distance from the plant to Seattle is forty-eight miles.

SNOQUALMIE FALLS POWER PLANT.

[Illustration: Snoqualmie Falls, 270 Feet High.]

The colossal power plant at Electron is not the only enterprise of
its kind that is contributing to the industrial growth of TACOMA. The
Cascade Mountains are the source of many rivers which have filed out deep
canyons and here and there plunge over lofty precipices seeking ocean
level in Puget Sound not many miles away. The first of the waterfalls
in the foothills of the Cascades to be harnessed to generate electric
power for transmission to the Puget Sound cities was Snoqualmie Falls,
270 feet in height, or nearly twice as high as the falls of the Niagara
River. A plant generating 10,000-horse power was installed at Snoqualmie
Falls about four years ago, a large share of the product of which is
transmitted to TACOMA, forty-four miles distant, where it is employed for
city lighting and important industrial purposes, such as supplying power
to the Tacoma Smelter, Tacoma Grain Company’s flour mills, and many other
manufacturing enterprises.

[Illustration:

1—Union Club House.
2—Telephone Exchange.
3—Sheard Building.
4—New Public Library.
]

A fire destroyed the transformer house at the Snoqualmie Falls power
plant September 20, 1903. A new fire-proof transformer house has
been erected in which four transformers of 2,500 kilowatts, or about
3,300-horse power each, have been installed in place of a battery of
thirteen 550 kilowatt transformers, thus increasing the capacity of the
transformers by more than 4,000-horse power.

The product of the Snoqualmie power plant was in use up to its limit when
the fire of September, 1903, occurred, and the Tacoma Cataract Company,
distributors of the Snoqualmie power in this city, had already begun
the construction of an auxiliary steam power plant on the tideflats at
TACOMA, which was completed and placed in operation December 20, 1903. It
adds 1,500-horse power to the product of the Snoqualmie Falls power plant
employed at TACOMA.

WHITE RIVER POWER COMPANY.

The inadequacy of the Snoqualmie Falls power plant to meet the demand
for power for municipal and industrial purposes at TACOMA, prompted its
owners to undertake a much larger enterprise, which will result in the
construction of still another mammoth power plant within ten miles of the
city of TACOMA.

The plan which is being carried out by what is known as the White River
Power Company, is to divert the White River about half a mile above the
town of Buckley into a canal, beginning at this point and extending a
distance of about five miles across the tableland to Lake Tapps. The
canal is being excavated like an ordinary railway cut out of the solid
gravel, hardpan or earth or whatever the geological formation happens to
be. It will be thirty feet in width on the bottom and fifty-five feet
wide at the top and eight feet deep. Dams are to be constructed at the
low points on the northerly side of Lake Tapps so that the lake can be
raised to a level thirty-five feet higher than the present, which will
cause the lake to overflow and merge with Kirtley Lake, Crawford Lake
and Kelly Lake, covering all the intervening bottom lands and valleys so
that the total area thus submerged and overflowed will exceed 4,000 acres
of land. This lake may be drawn down thirty feet. This reservoir will be
supplied by the flood waters of White River and will be drawn out through
the water wheels during the season of low water, and by thus equalizing
the flow of the river will make the power plant capable of a continuous
development of 100,000-horse power. The reservoir will permit the plant
to run at full load for several months, even if White River were to run
dry or the use of the supply canal were to be discontinued for that
length of time.

[Illustration:

1—Puget Sound Flouring Mills.
2—Pacific Brewing Company’s Plant.
3—Dry Dock at Quartermaster Harbor.
4—Power House of White River Power Company.
]

The water from this enlarged lake reservoir will be led through a channel
into a masonry penstock whence pressure pipes will conduct it down a
declivity to the site of the power house, within ten miles of TACOMA,
giving a fall of 485 feet. At the foot of these pipes the power house,
105×250 feet, will be constructed, as shown on the opposite page, and the
water will thence be released into the Stuck River. A short transmission
line will conduct the power to the Tacoma Cataract Company building in
this city, whence a large share of the present output of the Snoqualmie
Falls power plant is now distributed to consumers, public and private, in
TACOMA.

[Illustration: Nisqually River at Its Source in a Glacier.]

UNDEVELOPED POWER RESOURCES.

There are many other rivers or streams fed by the glaciers and snows of
Mount Tacoma which may and will be utilized for generating electrical
power as rapidly as required. The Tacoma Industrial Company has recently
bought a continuous strip four miles in length, including the White
River, and is making preparations to install a 15,000-horse power plant
twelve miles from TACOMA. The Nisqually River, which flows into the Sound
south of TACOMA, has enormous undeveloped power resources. Within thirty
miles of TACOMA, at Le Grand, a station on the Tacoma Eastern, on the
brink of the Nisqually Canyon, is an available and accessible water power
capable of generating 30,000-horse power. TACOMA commands the use of from
150,000 to 200,000-horse power as soon as required.

_NO OTHER SEAPORT IN THE WORLD HAS SUCH ABUNDANT RESOURCES OF CHEAP POWER
FOR MANUFACTURING PURPOSES._

_POWER IS BEING DELIVERED TO THE CITY OF TACOMA FOR PUMPING AND LIGHTING
PURPOSES AT THE LOWEST CONTRACT PRICES AT WHICH POWER IS OBTAINED AT ANY
CITY IN THE WORLD._

_MANUFACTURERS AT TACOMA ARE OBTAINING ELECTRIC POWER AT A LOWER PRICE
THAN THAT AT WHICH POWER IS OBTAINABLE AT ANY OTHER TIDEWATER PORT IN THE
UNITED STATES._

_TACOMA IS THE ELECTRIC CITY OF THE PACIFIC COAST._

[Illustration: Tacoma Smelter.]

ACCESS TO RAW MATERIALS.

Another important factor in TACOMA’S industrial development, past,
present and future, is its proximity and convenient access to the natural
products or raw materials employed in manufacturing. TACOMA is the point
at which the leading staple products of Washington are chiefly assembled
for manufacture and distribution. The resources of “Wonderful Washington”
are manifold. The products of the mines, the forests, the farms and
ranches, and of the waters are of untold value to the world. TACOMA’S
geographical position is such that she commands these products as does
no other point in the pacific Northwest. The great Olympic Peninsula
between Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean is surrounded by water on
three sides. Railroads are required to bring its products to tidewater,
and TACOMA, at the head of ocean navigation on the Sound, is in closest
proximity of all the Sound ports to this section rich in timber and
mineral resources. South, southeast, east and northeast of TACOMA are
equally rich sections of territory extending from the Sound on the north
and west to the Columbia River on the south and to the ridge line of the
Cascade Mountains on the east, whose treasures of agricultural, mineral
and forest wealth must seek the markets of the world through this port.
TACOMA is the natural and exclusive outlet for the products of this
region. Six steam and four electric railway lines radiating from TACOMA,
and numerous steamers plying between TACOMA and the island and mainland
ports of the Sound afford transportation facilities for the traffic of
the immediate and more remote regions tributary to the city. Across and
beyond the mountain passes lie the Yakima Valley, the “Inland Empire,”
and the greater domain of the United States whose products seeking
trans-pacific markets pass through this natural gateway to the Orient.

Puget Sound is 300 miles nearer Japan, Manila and the Orient than San
Francisco. It is 800 miles nearer Alaska than the Golden Gate. Ores for
the Tacoma Smelter are brought by rail from Eastern Washington and by
water from Alaska; from the islands along the coast of British North
America; from British Columbia, Korea, Straits Settlements, Mexico
and Central America. Foreign products brought across the pacific for
manufacture in the United States, such as raw silk from China and
Japan and hemp from Manila, are landed at TACOMA. The rail and water
transportation facilities which unite at TACOMA, coupled with its command
of raw materials and its wonderful resources of power and coal, make this
city a most exceptionally favored point for manufacturing.

[Illustration: Homes of Tacoma Banks.

1—Equitable Building.
2—National Bank of Commerce Building.
3—Berlin Building.
4—Luzon Building.
5—Fidelity Trust Company’s Building.
]

AVAILABLE MANUFACTURING SITES.

A resume of TACOMA’S superior advantages for manufacturing would be
incomplete without reference to its abundant supply of manufacturing
sites. There are twelve square miles of tide and river flats immediately
east of the city which, owing to a combination of circumstances, were
until recently incapable of private ownership and occupation. At the
south end or head of Commencement Bay there is a level plain traversed
near its westerly side by the Puyallup River. The lands on the easterly
side of the river were for many years set apart by the government as
a part of the Puyallup Indian reservation, but recently these have
been sold by order of the government. The King County line extended
also to the Puyallup River and the tide and river flats at the head
of the bay—most advantageously located for commercial and industrial
purposes—being without their jurisdiction, were incapable of improvement
by the city or Pierce County. But in 1901 the reservation lands were
legally annexed to Pierce County, of which TACOMA is the county seat, and
the occupation of this enormous area of flat lands adjacent to tidewater
has just begun.

A substantial bridge has this year been erected by the city of TACOMA
across the Puyallup River at a convenient point for access to the annexed
lands from the manufacturing district which occupies the flats west of
the Puyallup River. The federal government has made a complete survey of
the harbor of TACOMA, the plans for the improvement of which contemplate
the construction of a series of waterways extending from deep water in
the bay a considerable distance to the south. The City Waterway, which
is being dredged to a width of 550 feet and depths increasing as it
approaches the bay from fifteen to thirty feet, under a contract awarded
by the federal government in January, 1903, extends as far south as
Twenty-third Street, or nearly twenty city blocks from the original
harbor line. Miles of additional waterfront and wharves will thus be
obtained at the head of the bay, exclusive of the natural shore line some
ten miles in extent from Brown’s Point to Point Defiance. Railroads and
steamships will have direct and immediate access to the very heart of
this district. The acquisition and improvement by the construction of
roads, bridges and waterways of 6,000 acres of land immediately adjacent
to the city, make it possible for many more manufacturers to secure sites
and utilize the limitless power resources of TACOMA, the great INDUSTRIAL
CITY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

[Illustration: Loading Lumber at Tacoma Mill Company’s Wharf.]

TACOMA is now the leading manufacturing city of Washington and the
Pacific Northwest. The industrial development of the city since 1900 has
been phenomenal. According to the federal census there were in 1900 381
manufacturing establishments at TACOMA, whose aggregate invested capital
was $8,146,691, of which there were 385 proprietors and in whose employ
there were 293 salaried officials and clerks and 4,347 wage-earners.
Of this total number of wage-earners in manufacturing and mechanical
industries at TACOMA, 4,104 were men, while only 243 were women or
children under the age of 16 years. The total value of the products,
including custom work and repairing, of the 381 establishments at TACOMA
for the year preceding the taking of the census was $12,029,497.

_MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED NEW MILLS AND FACTORIES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE
LIST OF TACOMA’S MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES DURING THE FOUR YEARS THAT HAVE
ELAPSED SINCE THE FEDERAL CENSUS WAS TAKEN. THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF MORE
THAN TWO NEW FACTORIES EVERY MONTH. MANY OF THE OLDER ESTABLISHMENTS HAVE
DOUBLED OR TREBLED THEIR CAPACITY DURING THE SAME PERIOD._

No complete summary of the operations of TACOMA’S manufacturing
establishments can be presented for comparison with the census report
of 1900. But from written reports submitted to the Tacoma Daily News by
some of the leading manufacturing concerns in TACOMA, it appears that
during the calendar year 1903, one hundred and thirty-five representative
manufacturers in the city employed an average of 6,796 wage-earners
during the year, while the value of the finished product of these
establishments alone for the same year was $28,932,295, and the cost
of permanent improvements or additions to the plants during the year
was $1,129,550. In other words, 135 out of 500 to 600 establishments
that would now be classified by the census as manufacturing concerns in
this city employed 2,349 more wage-earners in 1903 than were employed
by a total of 389 establishments during the census year, while the
value of the output of these 135 establishments in 1903 was nearly two
and one-half times as great as the total value of the product of 389
establishments in 1900.

LUMBER INDUSTRY AT TACOMA.

TACOMA is the largest lumber manufacturing point on the Pacific Coast.
The manufacture of lumber is the most important industry in the
Pacific Northwest. In 1900 there were twelve lumber and shingle mills
in operation in TACOMA. In 1903 there were twenty-two in operation,
employing an average of 2,682 wage-earners. The increase in the lumber
and shingle output since 1900 may be shown by the following figures,
based upon reports from the local mills.

CUT OF TACOMA LUMBER MILLS.

Year. Lumber, feet. Shingles. Total value.
1900 185,414,130 178,386,000 $2,517,967
1901 219,150,000 251,000,000 2,695,700
1902 303,654,557 347,565,000 4,069,000
1903 361,522,766 376,935,500 5,110,398

[Illustration: St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company’s Mill and Wheeler-Osgood
Company’s New Sash and Door Factory.]

The increase in three years in the number of mills engaged in the lumber
and shingle industry at TACOMA is at the rate of 83.3 per cent.; in the
lumber cut at the rate of 96.6 per cent.; in the output of shingles at
the rate of 94.0 per cent.; and in the value of the product at the rate
of 103.0 per cent.

LARGEST LUMBER PLANT IN THE WORLD.

The St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company’s plant on the flats between the
City Waterway and the Puyallup River, is the largest saw mill plant in
the United States and probably in the world. It was established in 1888.
Its original capacity of 300,000 feet per diem has been increased to
500,000 feet by the erection of a second mill since 1900, and during the
year 1903 the company cut 122,348,562 feet of fir, spruce, hemlock and
cedar and sawed, dried and packed 63,822,000 shingles, its output for the
year being valued at $1,761,698. The company operates five logging camps
along the Northern Pacific and Tacoma Eastern railways and employs 1,500
men.

The Tacoma Mill Company’s plant on the waterfront at “Old Town” is the
second largest lumber plant at TACOMA in capacity, number of men employed
and the value of its output. This company is the successor of the firm
of Hanson & Ackerson who established a mill in 1868 on the shore of
Commencement Bay where the present plant of the Tacoma Mill Company
now stands. The first settlement at TACOMA was due to this mill. Its
original capacity was 40,000 feet per diem, which has been increased to
300,000 feet, the output for 1903 including 85,824,204 feet of lumber and
42,738,500 shingles, valued at $1,000,000.

_RAIL SHIPMENTS OF LUMBER AND SHINGLES FROM THE TACOMA MILLS INCREASED
FROM 3,141 CARS IN 1900 TO 6,012 CARS IN 1903, WHILE CARGO SHIPMENTS OF
LUMBER INCREASED FROM 77,818,557 FEET IN 1900 TO 129,036,317 FEET IN
1903._

The United States transport _Dix_ sailed on May 9, 1903, from this port
for Manila with 3,900,156 feet of lumber loaded at two TACOMA mill
wharves. _THIS WAS THE LARGEST LUMBER CARGO EVER LOADED IN THE WORLD._

OTHER MANUFACTURES OF WOOD.

A large share of the product of the TACOMA lumber mills is supplied to
manufacturers in this city. A long list of industries has developed at
TACOMA in consequence of its pre-eminence as the lumber mart of the
State. There are many planing mills and sash, door and blind factories.
The largest plant of this description in the State is that of the
Wheeler-Osgood Company, on the flats, enlarged and rebuilt since its
destruction by fire in September, 1902. Tacoma has large ship yards
and builds the largest wooden vessels for sail and steam navigation
engaged in the Sound or Coastwise trade to Alaska. There are three car
construction and repair plants at TACOMA; several furniture factories,
including the largest plant in this industry on the Coast, that of the
Carman Manufacturing Company, covering six acres; the largest plant in
the West for the manufacture of coffins and caskets; also the largest
plant in this section of the world for the manufacture of wooden-stave
water-pipe, that of the Washington Pipe and Foundry Company. There are
several large plants for the manufacture of boxes and box shooks, and a
great variety of industrial enterprises for the manufacture of articles
chiefly of wood, such as ladders, wheelbarrows, incubators, churns,
carriages and wagons, kegs, mantles, pails, tubs, trucks, wooden spoons,
and many other articles.

[Illustration: Northern Pacific Railway Construction and Repair Plant.]

In this connection the fact should be mentioned that TACOMA is not only
the great mart for Washington fir, spruce, hemlock, pine and cedar—soft
woods, but has command also of abundant supplies of hard woods, such as
maple, oak and ash, which are also found in Western Washington. Among the
new TACOMA industries of 1904 is a large plant for the manufacture of
parlor furniture from hard woods such as are obtainable in this vicinity
or will be brought from the tropical forests of the Philippine Islands by
steamships plying between this port and Manila.

RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIR PLANTS.

The second largest manufacturing plant in TACOMA which is also the
largest plant of its description in the Pacific Northwest, is the
railway construction and repair plant of the Northern Pacific Railway
at South TACOMA. This enormous plant furnishes employment for 800 men
and manufactures and repairs everything in the line of motive power or
rolling stock for railroad use. A $60,000 building for an additional
boiler shop is now being erected to enlarge the facilities for locomotive
work. The shops of the Tacoma Eastern railroad and the Tacoma Railway &
Power Company are also located at TACOMA. Adjoining the Northern Pacific
plant is a large plant of the Griffin Car Wheel Works, and not far
distant from South TACOMA is the largest rolling mill in the State, the
plant of the Western Iron & Steel Works at Lakeview. Allied to this class
of industrial enterprises are numerous foundries and machine shops for
the manufacture of stationary and marine engines and boilers, machinery,
saws, architectural iron, bridges, and other products of brass, tin,
copper, iron and steel. The Puget Sound Dry Dock & Machine Company, of
TACOMA, operates the largest private drydock north of San Francisco.

[Illustration:

1—Washington Pipe & Foundry Company.
2—Tacoma Warehouse & Elevator Company.
3—Carstens Packing Company.
4—Elevator A and Tacoma Grain Company’s Flour Mill.
5—Pacific Starch Company.
]

LARGEST SMELTER ON THE COAST.

Still another line of industry in which TACOMA takes the lead, is in the
reduction of ores of gold, silver, lead, copper and other metals. The
Tacoma Smelting Company’s plant on the waterfront at the north end of
the city is the largest smelter on the Pacific Coast. In 1902 the plant
was enlarged by the addition of huge copper reduction works which began
operations in September, 1902, and a copper refinery, the only plant of
its kind west of Great Falls, Montana, is now in course of construction.
The Tacoma Smelter began operations in September, 1890. In 1891 an
average of fifty-eight men were employed, and the value of the output was
$781,133.38. Five hundred men are now employed at the smelter and the
output of the plant for the year 1903 was as follows:

Gold, 176,312.41 ounces $3,644,377.51
Silver, 1,899,831.64 ounces 1,016,409.93
Lead, 22,488,377 lbs 955,756.02
Copper, 10,889,463 lbs 1,422,853.84
-------------
Total value of output $7,039,397.30

The amount paid in wages in 1903 was $264,767.60, freight paid to
Northern Pacific railway, $336,751.85, and freight paid to vessels,
$164,392.55.

FLOUR MILLS AND CEREAL PLANTS.

TACOMA is the chief flour milling city of the Pacific Northwest. The
product of its flour mills in 1903 was valued at $4,075,000. The Puget
Sound Flouring Mills Company operate the largest flour mill in the
State at TACOMA. The Tacoma Grain Company’s mill adjoining Elevator A
was erected in 1902. The Sperry Milling Company, the largest millers in
California, in connection with the Tacoma Warehouse & Elevator Company,
are erecting a large mill on the waterfront adjoining Elevator B. The
Albers Brothers Milling Company are about to erect another large flour
and cereal mill on the City Waterway. The plant of the Pacific Starch
Company, erected at a cost of $108,000 and opened in August, 1903, for
the manufacture of non-chemical wheat starch, is the largest wheat starch
factory in the United States. The Coast Cereal Company have erected this
year and are now operating a large cereal plant at South TACOMA.

BREWING AND MALTING ESTABLISHMENTS.

TACOMA has two large breweries. The plant of the Pacific Brewing &
Malting Company has been enlarged by the erection of three large cellars,
increasing the capacity of the plant to 150,000 barrels a year. Malt is
manufactured at TACOMA, not only by local brewers for their own use, but
also for the trade. The Puget Sound Malting Company is the only plant on
the Coast north of San Francisco engaged exclusively in the manufacture
of malt, and supplies the trade in Eastern Washington, Oregon and Alaska,
besides the Sound cities. The plant has been doubled in capacity to
240,000 bushels per year since January 1, 1904.

TACOMA has the largest stockyards and slaughtering and meat packing
establishment west of the Missouri River Valley. The new plant of the
Carstens Packing Company on the tideflats is pronounced to be the best
equipped and most complete and up-to-date packing house in the United
States. Its capacity is 250 cattle, 500 sheep and 500 hogs per day. It
will shortly be in full operation employing 300 men. The plant of the
Pacific Cold Storage Company prepares meats for a large trade in Alaska.
TACOMA has also large fish canneries, pickling and preserving works,
bottling establishments, mineral and soda-water works, coffee and spice
mills, flavoring extract and chemical works and candy factories. A large
plant is now being erected for the manufacture of crackers and biscuits.

[Illustration: Views Along the Tacoma Eastern Railroad.

1—Unloading Logs at Tacoma.
2—Sluskin Falls, Paradise River.
3—Lake Kapowsin Station.
4—Mount Tacoma from Paradise Valley.
5—Train Leaving Tacoma.
6—In the Mountains.
]

Among the other lines of industry in TACOMA not already enumerated are
mills or factories for the manufacture of brick and tile; brushes and
brooms; artificial ice; soap; tannery products; shoe uppers; boots and
shoes; buggy-tops; furs and for goods; clothing; shirts; overalls;
stockings; underwear; knit-goods; tents, awnings and sails; paper boxes;
fish baskets; oilskin garments and other goods; cigars; cigar boxes;
metal bedsteads and woven-wire bed springs; cotton felt; carpets and
rugs; excelsior; egg cases; enamels; furnaces and stoves; blank books,
ledgers; stencils; rubber stamps; trunks and traveling bags; paints and
varnish, and many other articles. _TACOMA IS THE LEADING MANUFACTURING
CITY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST._

RAILWAY FACILITIES AND TRAFFIC.

_TACOMA HAS THE MOST EXTENSIVE RAILWAY TERMINAL FACILITIES AND HANDLES
MORE FREIGHT THAN ANY OTHER CITY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST._ The Northern
Pacific railway has expended many millions in improvements on the TACOMA
waterfront. The official figures furnished by the railroads showing the
number of cars of pay freight consigned to each of the three leading
cities of the Pacific Northwest during the year 1903 are as follows:

Cars of freight received at—
Railway System. Tacoma. Seattle. Portland.
Northern Pacific 58,779 47,219 8,463
Tacoma Eastern 10,074
Commercial Dock 155
Great Northern 9,837
Pacific Coast Co. 11,020
O. R. & N 35,815
Southern Pacific 17,281
Astoria & Columbia River 896
O. W. P. & R. Co. 193
------ ------ ------
Totals 69,008 68,070 62,648

The Northern Pacific railway operates several distinct lines which
radiate from and converge at TACOMA. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy
operates through trains to and from Missouri River points and TACOMA,
over the N. P. tracks from Billings, Montana. The Harriman system is
to be extended to TACOMA from Portland. The Tacoma Eastern railroad is
now in operation from TACOMA to Ashford, with a branch to Electron,
57.5 miles of track being now in operation. This railroad taps the rich
timber, coal and agricultural lands on the southerly and westerly slopes
of Mount Tacoma. The company owns and is developing extensive coal mines.
It is about to extend into the “Big Bottom” country, as the rich and
fertile valley of the Upper Cowlitz River is called, from three to twelve
miles wide and sixty miles in length, one of the most desirable sections
for settlement in the State. The Tacoma Eastern railroad is the gateway
to Mount Tacoma and the National Park. The federal government is now
constructing a wagon road to Paradise Valley and the Camp of the Clouds,
which will connect with the railroad. Paradise Valley and Mount Tacoma
are destined to become a great resort for tourists.

[Illustration: A City of Beautiful Homes.

1—Residences of Col. C. W. Griggs and Henry Hewitt.
2—Residences of L. D. Campbell and L. R. Manning.
3—Nelson Bennett’s Residence.
4—Residences of Stuart Rice and Chester Thorne.
5—S. R. Balkwill’s Residence.
]

ELECTRIC RAILWAY SYSTEMS.

The general offices of the Puget Sound Electric Railway, operating
fifty-three miles of standard gauge electric railway, are at TACOMA.
The main line extends from TACOMA to Seattle, with a branch to Renton,
twelve miles from Seattle, and an extensive logging road from Edgewood,
near TACOMA, through the timber country towards Brown’s Point. This
is pronounced to be one of the finest equipped, best constructed and
operated electric railways in the country. Thirty-four trains arrive
or leave TACOMA daily between six o’clock A. M. and midnight. The road
has been in operation about two years and is aiding materially in the
settlement and development of the rich Puyallup and White River Valleys
between TACOMA and Seattle.

The Tacoma Railway & Power Company operates 85¼ miles of city and
suburban electric and cable railways at TACOMA. Lines are operated
to Puyallup, 16 miles; to Spanaway, 14 miles, and Steilacoom, 13
miles distant, bringing these towns into close touch with TACOMA,
and facilitating the growth of the city’s suburbs. About 400 men are
regularly employed as trainmen, trackmen, in the shops and general
offices. The increase in the number of passengers carried during the past
year is not less than 5,000 per day.

TACOMA’S OCEAN COMMERCE.

[Illustration: Train on Tacoma-Seattle Interurban Railway.]

TACOMA’S ocean commerce exceeds in magnitude and value that of every
other port on the Pacific Coast with the exception of San Francisco.
President James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railway, explained the
fact with the epigrammatic remark: “TACOMA has the facilities.” TACOMA
possesses one of the finest harbors in the world and has the most
extensive wharves and warehouses for handling ocean traffic on the
Pacific Coast.

[Illustration: City Waterway from Eleventh Street Bridge.]

TACOMA handles the largest share of the foreign trade of the North
Pacific Coast, the chief ports of which are TACOMA, Portland and Seattle.
The imports and exports of these three ports for ten years from July
1, 1894, to June 30, 1904, inclusive, as shown by the official customs
reports, were valued as follows:

Tacoma $121,652,289
Portland 105,590,572
Seattle 84,911,055

TACOMA is the leading port of the Puget Sound customs district, the
headquarters of which are at Port Townsend, and which includes TACOMA,
Seattle and fourteen other ports. Of the total foreign commerce of the
Puget Sound district, TACOMA handles more than 50 per cent., Seattle less
than 30 per cent., and the balance is distributed between fourteen other
ports in the district. The following are the official figures showing the
imports, exports and total foreign commerce of TACOMA, Seattle, and the
Puget Sound district for the first six months of 1904:

Total Foreign
Imports. Exports. Commerce.
Tacoma $2,835,712 $5,573,867 $8,409,579
Seattle 1,493,455 3,071,911 4,565,366
Minor ports 869,176 2,633,465 3,502,641
---------- ----------- -----------
Puget S’d Dist. $5,198,343 $11,279,243 $16,477,586

In ten years from 1894 to 1903, inclusive, the Puget Sound customs
district, of which TACOMA is the chief port, rose from twenty-first
to ninth in the magnitude of its foreign commerce among the customs
districts of the United States. For the year ending June 30, 1903, Puget
Sound was the sixth district in the United States in the tonnage of
American and foreign vessels entered and cleared in the foreign trade.
The leading customs districts, in the order of their rank in tonnage
entered and cleared, are New York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans,
Baltimore, PUGET SOUND, San Francisco, Galveston, Portland (Maine), and
Pensacola.

While Puget Sound ranks ninth among the customs districts of the United
States in the magnitude of its ocean commerce, measured by the value of
its imports and exports, this district stands first in the United States
in exports of manufactured lumber, boards, deals and planks; shingles;
fowls, and bristles. Second in exports of sheep, buckwheat, oats, baking
powder, cotton cloths, dried herring, canned salmon, hay, malt liquors
and manufactures of tin. Third in exports of cycles, ginseng, eider,
copper ore, printing paper, milk and onions. Fourth in exports of barley,
wheat, wheat flour, bran, middlings and mill-feed, candies, canned fruits
and gunpowder. Fifth in exports of eggs and malt. Sixth in exports of
furniture, salt, hogs, oysters, hops and nursery stock. Seventh in
exports of horses and copper, and eighth in exports of fresh fish.

[Illustration: Oriental Wharves and Warehouses.]

TACOMA’S ocean commerce may be classified as foreign and coastwise. The
latter includes chiefly shipments to and receipts by water from Alaska,
Hawaii and California. The foreign trade of TACOMA extends to every
continent on the globe and to the islands of the sea. The coastwise
receipts are chiefly ores, salmon and furs from Alaska, and fruits,
general merchandise and manufactures from California. The coastwise
shipments consist chiefly of merchandise sold by TACOMA jobbers to
customers in Alaska, provisions, machinery, lumber, feed, etc.; bullion,
coal, lumber and flour to California, and coal, lumber and merchandise
to Hawaii. The foreign commerce of the port consists of imports of silk,
tea, mattings, Manila hemp, and other Oriental products, ores for the
TACOMA smelter, grain bags for Washington wheat, cement and fire-bricks
for building purposes, iron and steel and other foreign commodities
imported into the United States; and exports the most valuable of which
are Washington products, wheat, flour, canned and salt salmon, lumber,
bottled beer, barley, hay and oats, besides cotton, domestics, bicycles,
tobacco and other products and manufactures of Eastern and Southern
States. But by far the greater part of TACOMA’S exports are products of
the State or of TACOMA mills.

MISTRESS OF THE ORIENTAL TRADE.

The Oriental trade of the Pacific Coast now centers at TACOMA. In June,
1892, the first steamship for the Orient from Puget Sound was dispatched
from TACOMA. In 1903, forty-four regular liners sailed from TACOMA for
the Orient, carrying cargoes valued at $8,149,906 from TACOMA, and cargo
from Seattle valued at $946,318.

TACOMA is the home port of the Boston Steamship Company, which operates
a line of five large steamships of American build and registry between
Puget Sound and the Orient. This line was established in July, 1902.
During the first two years of its operation, there were thirty-five
sailings from TACOMA for the Orient and thirty-two arrivals by vessels
of the line. Cargoes of foreign merchandise valued at $6,146,488 were
landed at TACOMA, while domestic merchandise for export to the value
of $6,444,911 was loaded on vessels of the line at this port. Seattle
furnished additional cargo for the line to the value of $2,505,935.
TACOMA has handled 83.4 per cent. of the total foreign commerce carried
by the Boston Steamship Company since the inauguration of its Puget
Sound-Oriental line.

The China Mutual Steamship Company, Ltd., and the Ocean Steamship
Company, Ltd., both of which are owned by Alfred Holt & Company, British
ship owners, operate a joint service between TACOMA and Liverpool and
Glasgow by way of the Orient, Suez Canal and Mediterranean route. Dodwell
& Company, the TACOMA agents of the line, shipped from TACOMA in 1903,
for the Orient and Europe, by this service and the smaller steamships of
the Northern Pacific Steamship Company, cargoes valued at $4,635,325,
with additional cargo from Seattle valued at $31,805. The steamships
Tacoma, Victoria and Olympia, for many years in the TACOMA-Oriental
trade, have recently been sold, the traffic having outgrown their
capacity. The cargo capacity of these pioneer steamships in TACOMA’S
Oriental trade ranged from 3,000 to 3,800 tons. The new steamships in the
service have cargo capacity ranging from 6,739 tons to 18,000 tons. The
Shawmut and Tremont of the Boston Steamship Company, and the Ning Chow,
the Oanfa and the Keemun of the Holt lines, are the largest carriers in
the Trans-Pacific trade.

[Illustration: Tacoma’s Wheat Warehouses.

1—Loading by Electric Conveyor.
2—Machinery for Cleaning Wheat.
3—Sacked Wheat in Warehouses.
4—Where Sail meets Rail.
]

The Kosmos Line operates a regular service between Puget Sound and
Hamburg by way of Mexican, Central and South American ports. In 1903
there were fifteen sailings from Puget Sound by steamships of this line,
TACOMA furnishing nearly 70 per cent. of the total cargoes carried from
the Sound.

The largest vessels engaged in the coastwise trade from TACOMA are
the steamships of the American-Hawaiian line operating from TACOMA to
Honolulu and New York, returning by way of San Francisco. The Arizonian,
Alaskan and Texan of this line, are vessels of 8,671 tons gross register
and 12,000 tons cargo capacity. There were fourteen sailings from TACOMA
for Honolulu and New York by this line in 1903.

Two lines of steamships are operated regularly between TACOMA and other
Sound ports and San Francisco, and several lines to Alaska. A fleet of
colliers also plies constantly between TACOMA and San Francisco, carrying
coal from this port. In 1902, 375,183 tons of coal were shipped as cargo
from this port, exclusive of fuel for steamships. In 1903, the shipments
of coal increased to 488,723 tons.

TACOMA handles the largest share of the staple products of the State
of Washington, lumber, wheat, flour and coal. The shipments of lumber
and coal have already been stated. TACOMA’S facilities for the handling
of wheat are unequalled at any other port in the world. The new wheat
warehouses erected in 1900 and 1901 on the city waterway, are the
longest in the world, being 2,360 feet in length and 148 feet in width.
They doubled the warehouse capacity for grain at this port and afford
admirable facilities for receiving the wheat from the cars, cleaning
and sacking it and loading it on ocean carriers. There are also two
enormous grain elevators and three large flour mills on the waterfront.
TACOMA’S facilities for exporting wheat and flour are so extensive that
in October, 1902, no less than twenty-five wheat carriers were loaded and
dispatched and the exports of the month included upwards of 2,000,000
bushels of wheat and 200,000 barrels of flour.

TACOMA is now the leading wheat and flour shipping port on the Pacific
Coast, and the customs district of Puget Sound, of which TACOMA is the
leading port, now ranks fourth in the United States in both wheat and
flour exports, and fourth also in the combined exports of wheat and wheat
flour reduced to wheat measure, each barrel of flour being equivalent to
four and one-half bushels of wheat.

[Illustration: Group of Wholesale Houses.

1—On Lower Pacific Avenue.
2—F. S. Harmon & Company, Wholesale Furniture.
3—Hunt & Mottet, Hardware.
4—Wm. Gardner & Company, Plumbing, Heating and Mill Supplies.
5—West Coast Grocery Company.
]

_THE PUGET SOUND CUSTOMS DISTRICT, OF WHICH TACOMA IS THE LEADING PORT,
HANDLING 90 PER CENT. OF THE WHEAT AND 60 PER CENT. OF THE FLOUR EXPORTS
OF THE DISTRICT, ROSE FROM TENTH TO FOURTH PLACE IN WHEAT EXPORTS AND
FROM SEVENTH TO FOURTH PLACE IN FLOUR EXPORTS IN THREE YEARS FROM 1900 TO
1903._

The following table, compiled from the records of the TACOMA
harbormaster, shows the total value of TACOMA’S ocean commerce, foreign
and coastwise, for the last five years:

Coastwise and Foreign—
Receipts. Shipments. Total.
1899 $8,607,196 $12,195,915 $20,803,111
1900 9,058,325 14,858,507 23,916,822
1901 11,495,859 22,904,877 34,400,736
1902 12,544,865 27,886,800 40,431,665
1903 13,335,398 21,861,972 35,497,370

WHOLESALE AND JOBBING TRADE.

TACOMA has a large and steadily increasing jobbing trade. Seventeen
individual firms and corporations are engaged in the export trade in
grain. There are sixty-three concerns engaged in the manufacture or sale
of lumber, many of the number being large wholesalers. There are a number
of importing houses which handle Oriental goods, fire-brick, cement,
grain bags and other foreign products for which there is a local demand.

Wholesale houses are established at TACOMA which supply the trade in
groceries and provisions, produce, cereals, flour and feed, meats,
fish, wines and liquors, confectionery, tobacco and cigars, dry goods
and notions, furs, boots and shoes, drugs, paints and oils, hardware,
building materials and contractors’ supplies, belting and hose, machinery
and mill supplies, plumbers’ supplies, wool, paper, furniture, and coal.
There are numerous commission houses and manufacturers’ agents. The West
Coast Grocery Company, of TACOMA, has the largest trade in Alaska of any
grocery house in the Northwest. The first and only exclusively wholesale
house established on Puget Sound in the trade in dry goods and notions
was located and opened at TACOMA in January, 1903, after a careful
canvass of the merits of other cities. This was quickly followed by the
establishment of a wholesale notion house, also handling dry goods. The
largest wholesale furniture house in the Pacific Northwest is at TACOMA.
One hundred and forty-four wholesale and jobbing houses handled a trade
amounting to $26,839,000 in 1903. Two hundred and eighty-six new business
houses were opened in TACOMA during 1903, while only three were closed.
These figures were furnished by the mercantile agencies.

BANKS AND BANKING.

TACOMA has three national banks, two state banks and one foreign banking
corporation, the London & San Francisco Bank, Ltd. There are also various
institutions for savings and building loans. The deposits in the banks of
discount and deposit aggregate $8,000,000 and are constantly increasing.

[Illustration:

1—Western Washington State Hospital for the Insane.
2—Children’s Home.
3—St. Joseph’s Hospital.
4—Fannie C. Paddock Memorial Hospital.
]

INCREASE IN BANK CLEARINGS.

TACOMA’S bank clearings reflect the marvelous growth of business
transacted in this city. The total bank clearings for twelve months
ending June 30, 1904, amounted to $102,301,642, as compared with
$93,348,272 during the previous fiscal year, $51,838,768 during twelve
months ending June 30, 1900, and $24,550,442 during twelve months ending
June 30, 1897. _TACOMA’S BANK CLEARINGS HAVE INCREASED AT THE RATE OF
97.3 PER CENT. IN FOUR YEARS AND AT THE RATE OF 316.7 PER CENT. IN SEVEN
YEARS._

REALTY TRANSFERS AND IMPROVEMENTS.

The number of real estate conveyances file for record during twelve
months ended June 30, 1904, was 6,513, and the amount of expressed
consideration was $6,302,837. This is an increase over the previous year
of $1,096,206, or at the rate of 21.1 per cent., and in two years of
$2,781,428, or at the rate of 79.0 per cent.

ACTIVITY IN BUILDING OPERATIONS.

There has been a phenomenal increase in building operations at TACOMA
amounting to no less than 855.8 per cent. in five years last past. The
following is the official record of the building inspector, showing the
number and estimated cost of dwellings and total building operations
for which permits were issued during the last six years. The building
inspector’s record does not cover a large amount of building in the
immediate suburbs of TACOMA, for industrial and residence purposes.

Twelve Mos. Dwellings. Total Permits.
ending June Number. Cost. Number. Cost.
1904 845 $883,068 1,429 $1,691,105
1903 620 665,895 1,043 1,543,755
1902 447 491,005 779 869,492
1901 251 316,640 652 692,156
1900 130 97,350 422 417,845
1899 74 51,195 371 176,934

Notwithstanding the investment of millions of dollars in TACOMA realty
and improvements, the mortgage indebtedness shows no appreciable
increase. In 1903, realty transfers reciting a consideration of
$4,646,537, were recorded and permits were issued in the city of TACOMA
for improvements estimated to cost $1,700,000. The net increase in the
mortgage indebtedness, as shown by the record of mortgages and mortgage
releases, was $169,655, or only 2.6 per cent. of the amount involved in
real estate purchases and improvements.

FEDERAL BUILDING AND COLLECTIONS.

The federal government has purchased a site for a much needed public
building at TACOMA, which will shortly be erected. TACOMA is the
headquarters of the new Internal Revenue Collection District of
Washington and Alaska. Federal collections at TACOMA for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1903, were as follows: Internal revenue, $688,696.50;
customs, $301,039.32; postoffice receipts, $113,598.66; total,
$1,103,334.48. Postoffice receipts have increased at the rate of 132.1
per cent. in seven years.

[Illustration:

1—Mason Library, Whitworth College.
2—Annie Wright Seminary from Wright Park.
3—Administrative Building, University of Puget Sound.
4—Residence and Boys’ Dormitory, Whitworth College.
]

MUNICIPAL IMPROVEMENTS AND UTILITIES.

Extensive municipal improvements are in progress. Among the more
important are several miles of asphalt and brick paving; fifty miles of
new sidewalks, principally of cement; sewers, water mains and bridges.
TACOMA owns and operates its own water and electric lighting plants,
supplying both water and light to private consumers. The city procures
current from the power companies at the lowest rates paid in the United
States and receives a large and increasing revenue from operation,
notwithstanding recent reductions in rates, which are as low to private
consumers as in any American city. TACOMA maintains an efficient free
employment bureau.

ASSESSMENT AND BONDED DEBT.

The assessed valuation of taxable property in TACOMA in 1903 was
$22,468,988. The bonded indebtedness, exclusive of the water and light
debt, is $1,743,000. The city has no floating indebtedness and has a
sinking fund amounting to $135,734.52, largely invested in TACOMA city
bonds bought in the market at 110. The city owns property valued at
$3,250,000. The light and water debt of $2,080,000 represents the capital
invested in a profitable business which produces a revenue to the city.

SCHOOLS, COLLEGES AND CHURCHES.

TACOMA has twenty-one public schools of the primary and grammar school
grades and a high school. A magnificent building with accommodations
for 1,200 pupils is being erected for the high school. The enrollment
in the public schools for the year 1903-04 was 8,939 and the average
daily attendance 7,066. The value of school property in the district
is $988,040, while the total liabilities, including bond and warrant
indebtedness amounted to $492,523.02 on June 30, 1904, with a cash
balance on hand of $36,554.82.

TACOMA is the seat of Whitworth College, founded and conducted by the
Presbyterian Church, which occupies a conspicuous location overlooking
the Sound. The University of Puget Sound is under the auspices of the
Methodist Episcopal Church. The University occupies a fine new building
at the West End. The Annie Wright Seminary is a boarding and day school
for girls. It is liberally endowed and has a valuable property near
Wright Park. The Pacific Lutheran Academy and Business College is
at Parkland, a suburb at the south. Vachon College is at Burton, on
Quartermaster Harbor. The Academy of the Visitation and St. Aquinas
Academy are schools for girls under Roman Catholic auspices. There are
also two business colleges, a training school for nurses in connection
with the Fannie Paddock Hospital, and schools of music and art.

TACOMA has upwards of eighty church organizations, representing all the
leading religious denominations. TACOMA is the see city of the Episcopal
Jurisdiction of Olympia.

FERRY MUSEUM AND NEW PUBLIC LIBRARY.

The Ferry Museum occupies the fourth and fifth floors of the County Court
House. It has extensive collections of natural history, art, sculpture,
Indian baskets and relics, Oriental curios and the like. The Tozier
exhibit is the most extensive Indian collection in the world.

TACOMA has a new public library building completed and opened in 1903,
the gift to the city of Andrew Carnegie, who gave $75,000 for the
building, the city providing the site. The library contains 30,000
volumes.

HOSPITALS AND ASYLUMS.

There are two large and well-equipped general hospitals at TACOMA,
St. Joseph’s Hospital, and the Fannie C. Paddock Memorial Hospital,
also a large new Pierce County Hospital. A $100,000 hospital for the
employes of the Northern Pacific railway is now building. At Steilacoom
is the Western Washington State Hospital for the Insane. There are
three children’s homes for orphans or friendless children, and numerous
benevolent and charitable institutions.

800 ACRES OF PUBLIC PARKS.

TACOMA has 800 acres of beautiful parks. Point Defiance Park occupies the
northerly extremity of the peninsula on which TACOMA is built. It has
about three miles of shore line on the Sound and most of it is covered
with giant fir. It is a park of unusual natural beauties and attractions.
Wright Park is a garden, twenty-eight acres in extent in the heart of the
city, with a great variety of shrubs, trees and flowers.

OPPORTUNITIES.

TACOMA, the industrial and commercial center of the Empire State of
the Coast, is an inviting field for enterprise and effort and offers
boundless opportunities for the profitable employment of capital in
manufactures, trade, commerce and transportation, and rich rewards for
the exercise of brains and well-directed energies.

[Illustration: Decorated for Tacoma’s Rose Carnival.]

BUILDING PERMITS ISSUED DURING THREE YEARS ENDING JUNE 30, 1904, BY
MONTHS.

+===========+=====================================+
| | 1901-02. |
| MONTHS. +------------------+------------------+
| | DWELLINGS. | TOTAL PERMITS. |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+
| | _No._| _Cost._ | _No._| _Cost._ |
| July | 29 | $ 35,040 | 66 | $ 66,845 |
| August | 23 | 29,990 | 47 | 59,540 |
| September | 38 | 52,200 | 63 | 137,741 |
| October | 30 | 21,125 | 61 | 36,941 |
| November | 22 | 21,290 | 34 | 24,520 |
| December | 17 | 15,800 | 25 | 31,200 |
| January | 33 | 34,900 | 55 | 53,340 |
| February | 37 | 46,650 | 60 | 68,900 |
| March | 55 | 57,075 | 84 | 109,050 |
| April | 55 | 57,415 | 96 | 104,320 |
| May | 72 | 73,460 | 122 | 100,280 |
| June | 36 | 46,060 | 66 | 76,815 |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+
| Totals | 447 | $491,005 | 779 | $869,492 |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+

+===========+=====================================+
| | 1902-03. |
| MONTHS. +------------------+------------------+
| | DWELLINGS. | TOTAL PERMITS. |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+
| | _No._| _Cost._ | _No._| _Cost._ |
| July | 38 | $ 43,955 | 73 | $ 76,945 |
| August | 42 | 42,850 | 70 | 150,880 |
| September | 39 | 48,660 | 69 | 113,555 |
| October | 45 | 43,252 | 81 | 120,700 |
| November | 42 | 39,140 | 77 | 54,095 |
| December | 20 | 22,075 | 43 | 70,695 |
| January | 49 | 51,130 | 77 | 84,785 |
| February | 60 | 75,410 | 100 | 116,725 |
| March | 71 | 72,505 | 106 | 306,012 |
| April | 78 | 76,660 | 131 | 190,990 |
| May | 62 | 67,595 | 99 | 111,743 |
| June | 74 | 82,463 | 117 | 146,630 |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+
| Totals | 620 | $665,695 | 1043 |$1,543,755 |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+

+===========+=====================================+
| | 1903-04. |
| MONTHS. +------------------+------------------+
| | DWELLINGS. | TOTAL PERMITS. |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+
| | _No._| _Cost._ | _No._| _Cost._ |
| July | 79 | $ 74,640 | 113 | $ 125,680 |
| August | 90 | 96,135 | 149 | 120,401 |
| September | 84 | 88,150 | 144 | 170,345 |
| October | 68 | 65,720 | 117 | 148,783 |
| November | 45 | 33,730 | 78 | 122,225 |
| December | 44 | 35,900 | 84 | 56,015 |
| January | 55 | 57,360 | 92 | 116,553 |
| February | 62 | 64,485 | 105 | 121,675 |
| March | 68 | 72,100 | 115 | 92,950 |
| April | 83 | 100,580 | 128 | 135,600 |
| May | 86 | 97,160 | 160 | 234,582 |
| June | 81 | 97,108 | 144 | 246,296 |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+
| Totals | 845 | $883,068 | 1429 |$1,691,105 |
+-----------+------+-----------+------+-----------+

TACOMA BANK CLEARINGS.

+===========+=================+=================+=================+
| MONTHS. | 1901-02. | 1902-03. | 1903-04. |
+-----------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| July | $ 4,318,153.03 | $ 5,409,206.75 | $ 7,715,579.70 |
| August | 4,594,683.55 | 5,945,993.04 | 7,308,197.37 |
| September | 5,252,834,60 | 6,244,709.50 | 8,330,087.33 |
| October | 5,982,652.46 | 8,569,541.60 | 9,268,786.11 |
| November | 5,537,297.55 | 8,460,959.94 | 8,764,691.01 |
| December | 5,031,807.23 | 9,681,493.06 | 10,060,853.96 |
| January | 5,414,839.63 | 8,969,399.35 | 8,719,901.12 |
| February | 4,267,933.49 | 7,521,557.21 | 8,175,534.17 |
| March | 5,243,385.69 | 8,639,380.86 | 9,144,338.91 |
| April | 5,266,410.53 | 8,162,920.94 | 8,231,909.76 |
| May | 5,508,605.51 | 7,965,403.09 | 8,299,838.70 |
| June | 5,736,684.64 | 7,767,707.08 | 8,281,923.53 |
+-----------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Totals | $62,155,287.91 | $93,348,272.42 | $102,301,641.67 |
+-----------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

POST OFFICE RECEIPTS.

+===========+=================+=================+=================+
| MONTHS. | 1901-02. | 1902-03. | 1903-04. |
+-----------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| July | $ 6,828.06 | $ 7,854.42 | $ 8,934.53 |
| August | 6,036.91 | 6,603.76 | 8,708.47 |
| September | 7,098.88 | 7,620.88 | 8,736.62 |
| October | 7,163.26 | 8,209.68 | 10,277.23 |
| November | 7,439.21 | 7,867.43 | 9,264.48 |
| December | 8,498.15 | 10,269.96 | 11,837.96 |
| January | 8,473.29 | 9,277.34 | 10,053.33 |
| February | 7,330.70 | 9,024.62 | 9,613.01 |
| March | 7,238.57 | 8,360.07 | 9,807.18 |
| April | 7,592.38 | 8,357.45 | 9,021.51 |
| May | 8,069.68 | 7,651.96 | 8,551.12 |
| June | 6,998.30 | 8,128.26 | 8,793.22 |
+-----------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+
| Totals | $88,767.39 | $99,225.83 | $113,598.66 |
+-----------+-----------------+-----------------+-----------------+

HOW TACOMA GROWS

(Compiled from latest obtainable statistics. “1903-4” refers to the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1904.)

=Population of Tacoma= and environs, July 1, 1904; =67,405=.
=Increase= in four years—=25,094=, or at the rate of =59.3 per
cent.=

=Post Office Receipts=, 1903-4, =$113,598.66=. =Increase—14.7
per cent.= in one year; =28.2 per cent.= in two years; =53.7
per cent.= in three years; =77.4 per cent.= in four years;
=132.1 per cent.= in seven years.

=Bank Clearings=, 1903-4, =$102,301,272.42=. =Increase—9.6 per
cent.= in one year; =64.6 per cent.= in two years; =77.0 per
cent.= in three years; =97.3 per cent.= in four years; =316.7
per cent.= in seven years.

=Building Permits=, 1903-4, =1,429=. =Increase—37.0 per cent.=,
in one year; =80.8 per cent.= in two years; =134.5 per cent.=
in three years; =238.6 per cent.= in four years.

=Cost of Building Improvements=, 1903-4, =$1,691,105=.
=Increase—9.5 per cent.= in one year; =94.5 per cent.= in two
years; =144.3 per cent.= in three years; =304.7 per cent.= in
four years; =855.8 per cent.= in five years.

=Realty Transfers=, 1903-4, =$6,302,837=. =Increase—21.1 per
cent.= in one year; =79.0 per cent.=, in two years.

=Customs Receipts=, 1903-4, =$301,039.32=. =Increase—148.3 per
cent.= in four years; =356.7 per cent.= in six years.

=Ocean Commerce=, 1903-4, =$37,362,782=. =Increase—2.2 per
cent.= in one year; =28.0 per cent.= in three years; =63.8 per
cent.= in four years.

=Cut of Lumber Mills=, 1903, =361,522,766 feet=. =Increase—19.0
per cent.= in one year; =65.0 per cent.= in two years; =96.6
per cent.= in three years.

=Product of Shingle Mills=, 1903, =376,935,500= shingles.
=Increase—94.0 per cent.= in three years.

=Output of Tacoma Smelter=, 1903, =$7,059,397.30=.
=Increase—188.7 per cent.= in three years.

=Daily Capacity of Flouring Mills=, 1904, =5,550 barrels=.
=Increase—146.7 per cent.= in four years.

=Number of Telephones in use=, July 1, 1904, =6,192=.
=Increase—250.4 per cent.= since Jan. 1, 1900.

=Miles of Electric Railway=—Urban, Suburban and Interurban—in
operation, 1904, =138¼=. =Increase—100 per cent.= in three
years.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Tacoma: Electric City of the Pacific Coast, 1904" ***

Home