Part 1

TACOMA AND VICINITY.

Nuhn & Wheeler, Publishers, TACOMA, WASH.

A copy of this book will be forwarded by mail on receipt of seventy-five cents.

COPYRIGHT 1888.

Tacoma and Vicinity.

Tacoma has well been called the “City of Destiny,” for never in the history of our great republic has the finger of destiny so unerringly pointed to the location of a large commercial and manufacturing metropolis as it did to the shores of Commencement bay when the Northern Pacific located here the terminus of its main line on Puget sound. In its history, years have witnessed more life and growth, more progress in business and wealth and the creation of more permanent values of property, than decades in the history of older and admittedly prosperous cities of the eastern states. Eight years ago, at the beginning of the present decade, Tacoma had a population of but seven hundred and twenty souls, its streets were ungraded and full of stumps, and its business blocks were few and of but the cheapest of frame structures. What mighty things have been wrought in the brief time which has since elapsed! Now it has many miles of graded streets, of water and gas mains, of telegraph, telephone and electric light wires and street railways, solid blocks of brick and stone business structures, large and commodious opera house, public schools, seminaries and academies, elegant hotels, large factories, great and expanding docks, warehouses and shipping facilities, a taxable property of $6,555,400 and a population of twenty thousand souls. It is this Tacoma of to-day, bustling, vigorous, full of life and business, and advancing with prodigious strides, which is treated of in the following pages of engravings and descriptive matter. These engravings, elegant and artistic as they are, fall far short of doing justice to a city whose prosperity, vitality and progressiveness it is impossible to convey to paper. They are the Tacoma of to-day, but will be almost as unlike the great city ten years from now which will bear that name, as they are unlike that city of board shanties which occupied this site eight years ago.

TACOMA’S NEW GRAND OPERA HOUSE.

Tacoma has hitherto lacked one most essential feature of a city--an opera house--and for this reason has been often denied the pleasure of listening to some of the great dramatic stars who have visited the coast. It will not be long before this will be remedied, as the most elegant opera house north of San Francisco is now in course of erection. Several of the public spirited citizens of this place recently organized the Tacoma Opera House Company, with a capital stock of $100,000.00, for the purpose of building an opera house such as the growing needs of the city require. Plans were drawn for an elegant building to cost $75,000.00, and this is now in course of construction on the corner of Ninth and C streets. The first story is of stone and the remainder of brick and terra cotta. It will have accommodations for several stores on the ground floor, and for a number of offices up stairs, and will be completed early in the spring of 1889. In all its appointments it will be elegant, and will have a seating capacity of twelve hundred. The stage settings, dressing rooms, mechanical appliances and all the accessories of a theater will be of the best pattern, and the opera chairs of the latest design. From the engraving of the exterior given on the opposite page, it will be seen that this structure will be one of the most imposing and ornamental architectural features of the city. It is located convenient to the hotels, the business portion of the city and the street car lines. With such an opera house as this, and with a population of twenty thousand people to give them patronage, the best attractions in the United States will be drawn to Tacoma as one of the regular “show towns” of the grand transcontinental circuit.

HOTELS OF THE TERMINAL CITY.

Tourists unhesitatingly declare that in this city they find the only really adequate and enjoyable hotel accommodations to be had on the Pacific coast north of San Francisco, and to this one fact is due much of the popularity of the city spread abroad by those who have enjoyed its hospitalities. Recognizing the necessity for such an institution, the Tacoma Land Company erected in 1884 the large and handsome stone and brick hotel building shown in the engraving on the opposite page. It stands on the bluff above the water front, overlooking the bay, river, valley, foothills and mountains. From the veranda and lawn a grand landscape may be seen, the great snowy mass of Mount Tacoma standing out in bold relief against the sky. The possession of such a house of entertainment, elegantly furnished and conducted in first class style by Mr. W. D. Tyler, a most courteous and able manager, renders the city a favorite summer resort and headquarters for those who desire to spend a few weeks viewing the grand scenery of the sound. On another page is given an engraving of the new and elegant Hotel Fife, a large five-story brick structure, recently completed at a cost of $125,000.00. It contains one hundred and twenty-six rooms, and is supplied with all the modern conveniences of gas, water, electric bells, elevator, etc. Hotel Fife is most elegantly furnished, and is conducted on the European plan. Hotel Rochester, recently erected on Tacoma avenue (see engraving on another page), is a large brick edifice, four stories high, and cost $75,000.00. It occupies a commanding site, and is designed for a family hotel, all its rooms being _en suite_, with bath, electric light and water. It is heated by steam, and has its own electric light plant, laundry and Turkish bath. A number of smaller hotels add to the city’s accommodations for strangers.

GRAIN SHIPMENTS AND FLOURING MILLS.

Less than a year has passed since Tacoma entered regularly into the shipping of grain and flour to foreign markets, though practically this business began the present year, after the completion of the tunnel through the mountains. During the year ending June 30, 1888, there were shipped from this port eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-three bushels of grain, and the estimated quantity for the current fiscal year is four million five hundred thousand bushels, requiring a grain fleet of sixty vessels, being an average of one cargo dispatched every six days. Owing to the fact that vessels can enter Puget sound more cheaply than the Columbia river, and can discharge and receive cargo and get to sea again cheaper, charters are much lower here than at Portland, and the price of wheat proportionately higher. For this reason the wheat along the line of the Northern Pacific, which, before the completion of the road over the mountains, was shipped to Portland, now comes to Tacoma. As the Northern Pacific and its branches and connecting lines ramify the entire wheat region east of the Cascades, where twenty million bushels will be produced this year, it can be seen that an estimate of four million five hundred thousand bushels for the present year is not a large one. Wheat warehouses, with a capacity of five hundred thousand bushels, have been built on the water front, and are being doubled in size. The Northern Pacific Elevator Co. is erecting a four-story elevator, with a capacity of a million bushels, and has elevators and warehouses at all the principal shipping points in the interior. The only steam flouring mill on Puget sound is located here. Not only is this port superior to Portland as a general shipping point for grain and flour, but it has special advantages in the China trade, which consumes twenty-five hundred barrels per month of Pacific coast flour. Recognizing this, gentlemen engaged largely in manufacturing flour in Oregon are erecting an immense mill with a daily capacity of one thousand barrels, which will begin grinding next season.

COAL AND IRON RESOURCES.

Coal shipments from the port of Tacoma average twenty-seven thousand tons a month, being the product of mines situated in the region immediately tributary to the city and along the line of the Northern Pacific. These mines are owned and operated by the Carbon Hill Coal Co., the Wilkeson Coal and Coke Co., the Tacoma Coal Co., the South Prairie Coal Co., all in the Puyallup region, and the Bucoda Coal Co., south of the city. Nearly all these shipments go by sail and steamer to the San Francisco market. The Durham coal mines, sixty miles east of Tacoma, are just being opened, and provision is being made for a daily output of three hundred tons. This is fine coking coal, and will be used by the great iron smelters to be erected at Cle Elum. The mine is the property of the Pacific Investment Co. At Roslyn, on the east side of the mountains, are the mines of the Northern Pacific Coal Co., whose headquarters are in this city. Inexhaustible in quantity, and much of it making the finest quality of coke, the coal deposits about Tacoma must build up a very large city here. Iron ore of a superior quality lies in immense and easily accessible deposits almost at the city’s gate. Coal, coke and iron, with limestone in abundance, suggest the great manufacturing possibilities, to take advantage of which an immense enterprise is already on foot, in the form of a gigantic iron smelting plant, to be erected at Cle Elum, near the Roslyn mines, by the Moss Bay Iron Co., one of the largest institutions of its kind in England, and the huge reduction works soon to be erected at Tacoma by a company recently organized for that purpose.

LUMBER INTERESTS OF TACOMA.

Lumber is one of the chief products of Puget sound, and in the lumbering industry Tacoma leads all other cities on the sound, or on the Pacific coast. Mill capacity has more than doubled the present season. In January four mills were cutting four hundred thousand feet per day; since then five new mills have been built and two of the old ones have increased their capacity, one of them, the Tacoma Mill Co., to five hundred thousand feet, making now a total output of eight hundred and thirty-five thousand feet. This will be greatly increased in a short time, as one of the mills, owned by the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Co., is credited with only fifteen thousand feet, and is but a temporary concern engaged in sawing timbers for an immense mill which will be turning out five hundred thousand feet per day in a few weeks. Another new mill will cut one hundred thousand feet, and still another thirty-five thousand, while the capacity of another will be increased. Thus, by the spring of 1889, Tacoma will have eleven mills cutting an aggregate of more than one and one-half million feet of lumber per day. On the opposite page is an engraving of the Pacific Mill, built this year, and one of the most complete establishments of its kind in the world, with a capacity of three hundred thousand feet a day. The larger mills are all supplied with shingle and lath machines, and millions of lath and cedar shingles are made daily. The output of shingles has quadrupled within the past year. Sash and door factories have increased in number and capacity, their product finding a market on the sound and along the line of the Northern Pacific. Lumber is shipped from the mills direct to California, Chili, Peru, Central America, Sandwich islands, Australia, Japan and China, and ship timbers, spars and masts are sent to Europe and the Atlantic coast of the United States. Often a dozen ships are in port at one time loading lumber, and the scene along the docks is a busy one. By rail, lumber is sent as far east as Denver and Omaha.

LOGGING ON PUGET SOUND.

Puget sound holds a leading position in the United States in the magnitude of its logging operations. The quantity of logs put into the water in 1888 was four hundred and thirty-four million five hundred thousand feet. Logging is carried on to the best advantage in the summer time, and logging railroads, sometimes several miles in length, upon which locomotives draw cars of logs from the interior to the sound, or to streams connecting with it, have been built by a number of companies at great expense. In the huge size of the timber, the logger of the west finds an obstacle to contend with that the logger of the Michigan pineries does not encounter. Logs of six feet in diameter are frequent, while they occasionally much exceed that figure. Ox teams generally consist of six pairs of lusty animals, which are used to drag the logs to the railroad or stream. In cutting down this huge timber, the choppers use a novel device to avoid cutting through the swell near the ground. A notch several inches deep is cut in the side of the tree, and the end of a spring board, having an iron shoe, is put into the notch in such a way that it is bound fast by the weight of the chopper when he stands on it. If the first notch is not high enough, another is cut higher up. By this method the stumps left standing are from six to twelve feet high. When the tree is very large, two choppers work at a time, as shown in the engraving on the opposite page.

GENERAL OFFICES OF THE NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

At the edge of the bluff overlooking the harbor, and at the head of the grade leading down to the water front, stands the elegant, commodious building used for the general offices of the Northern Pacific. It is a most substantial structure of brick and iron, cemented on the exterior walls, having a basement, three stories and an attic, with asbestos felt under each floor, and was completed in the fall of 1888 at a total cost of $125,000.00. In all, the building contains fifty-three office and store rooms, and nineteen commodious fire-proof vaults, one being connected with every suite of rooms. It is heated by hot water, and the interior finishing and furnishing is very elegant and ornamental. In addition to the offices of the Northern Pacific, the building will be occupied by the western office of the land department of the N. P. R. R., managed by Mr. Paul Schulze, the Tacoma Land Company, Mr. Isaac W. Anderson, manager, the Northern Pacific Coal Company, and the Northern Pacific Express Company. This elegant and imposing structure, occupying such a commanding site, will always be one of the most striking architectural features of the city, proclaiming to the world the confidence the officers of the Northern Pacific have in the future of the great city springing up at its western terminus.

TACOMA’S FINE BUSINESS BLOCKS.

Not the least of the marvels of Tacoma’s history is the great business blocks that have been erected, converting a forest wild into a city of brick and stone in less than a decade. A suggestion of the massive appearance of the buildings on a portion of one of the streets is given by the first engraving in this volume, while on other pages are presented engravings of a number of fine business blocks but recently erected. Here is located the only chamber of commerce building north of San Francisco. It is a substantial three-story stone and brick structure, and in addition to the board of trade rooms contains commodious offices and stores. Union block, on the corner of Eleventh street and Pacific avenue, is a three-story and basement brick structure, erected by Cogswell & Son and John S. Baker. It is one hundred by one hundred and twenty feet in size, contains large stores and office rooms and cost $55,000. Sprague Buildings is the title of a large brick block four stories high, and extending three hundred and eighteen feet on Pacific avenue, erected by Gen. J. W. Sprague. It cost $75,000.00, and contains four stores for wholesale business, each occupying four floors and basement. Germania hall is a frame structure sixty-six by one hundred and twenty feet in size, erected by the Germania Society, on E street, between thirteenth and fourteenth, at a cost of $10,000.00. It contains a large hall for amusements and meetings, with other rooms and basement. Ouimette block is a handsome three-story brick structure on Pacific avenue. Mason block stands on A street, one block from “The Tacoma,” and is a handsome three-story brick edifice, with St. Louis pressed brick front and Bellingham bay blue stone trimmings. It contains the post office, express office, a store and many elegant office rooms. The buildings specially mentioned are only those recently completed. Many other fine business structures adorn the business thoroughfares and testify to the prosperity and solid business interests of the city.

STREETS, WATER WORKS AND ELECTRIC LIGHTS.

Electricity lights the business thoroughfares and many of the stores, while gas illuminates other portions of the city. The gas works were built in 1884, and the electric light plant, now having twenty miles of wire, was put in by a responsible company in 1887. There is, also, an excellent telephone service, with an extended circuit reaching Puyallup valley. In its water works it is especially fortunate. The system was built in 1884, at a cost of $300,000.00, and consists of eleven miles of mains, supplied with pure water by an aqueduct ten miles in length. The lower portion of the city is supplied by direct pressure from the reservoir, two hundred and sixty-two feet above the harbor, while the upper levels are served by powerful Holly pumps. A splendidly equipped fire department gives the city ample protection from the destroying element. In the matter of the improvement of its streets the city has done more to show its progressive and metropolitan character than in any other way. The leading thoroughfares are macadamized, and throughout the entire city streets are graded and in good condition. There are thirty-five miles of graded streets and fifty miles of sidewalk within the city limits. A horse car line runs the entire length of Pacific avenue from the water front, and a motor line runs out to Division avenue and Tacoma avenue, and along the latter both north and south for a long distance.

TACOMA AS A MANUFACTURING CITY.

Whenever so young a city as Tacoma is mentioned it is generally spoken of as a prospective metropolis, whose present growth is based largely upon the future. Great as Tacoma’s future is sure to be, its present condition has not been reached by discounting it nor is its great prosperity due to large drafts on future industries. It has now many establishments which employ a large number of hands, pay many thousands of dollars to workmen monthly, and turn out a manufactured product valued at millions of dollars annually. One of these branches of industry is the saw mills and sash factories spoken of elsewhere, in which Tacoma is one of the leading cities of the world. Besides this there are a furniture factory, iron foundry, machine shops, flouring mills, car shops, and a number of smaller industries. The car shops of the Northern Pacific are located here, and give employment to a large number of hands. The huge reduction works being erected here, the flouring mills, and the gigantic iron smelting enterprise at Cle Elum, have been mentioned on other pages. The only coking ovens on the coast are located near the city and are owned by Tacoma parties. These enterprises are enough to account for the prosperous condition of the city, yet they are but an index of the manufacturing which will be done here in a few years. Situated in the midst of coal, iron, limestone, and hard and soft wood timber, all of unlimited quantity and superior quality; occupying the position of actual and operating terminus of a great transcontinental railroad, which renders tributary to it a vast empire producing cereals, stock, fruit, hops and other agricultural products in abundance, and is the outlet for a dozen of the richest mining districts in the west; and being already the largest shipping port on the greatest inland harbor on the Pacific coast, its future as a manufacturing city is assured beyond all question.

MOUNT TACOMA, THE CASCADE MONARCH.

Rearing its great mass of snow and ice far above the surrounding mountains, Mt. Tacoma is the most commanding object in every Puget sound landscape, and is never seen to better advantage than from the streets of Tacoma. Its height is fourteen thousand four hundred and forty-four feet, exceeding that of any other of the numerous snow peaks of the Cascades, and in beauty of form and location it stands pre-eminent the monarch of the mountains. Captain George Vancouver, the discoverer and original explorer of Puget sound, in May, 1792, named this mountain “Rainier,” in honor of Rear Admiral Rainier, of the English navy, but the people of Puget sound, who can see no reason why the original and characteristic names given such objects by the aborigines should be changed, have discarded that title and restored the Indian name “Tacoma.” It is a beautiful name and most appropriate, meaning “near to heaven.” Ascents of the mountain are very frequently made by tourists, arrangements for which can be made in Tacoma. The view from its summit is grand beyond description, and the wild and rugged nature of its glaciers, gorges, canyons and rocky precipices give the mountain climber all the excitement he can reasonably desire. Mountain sheep and goats are hunted amid its glaciers by the venturesome sportsman, and the forests of the surrounding mountains are full of game that will try the nerve and skill of the most experienced hunter, no matter from what quarter of the globe he may come.

REDUCTION OF ORES OF THE NORTHWEST.

Yearly the output of ores in the mines of Oregon, Washington and Northern Idaho is increasing. Not only are the older mines enlarging their yield, but new ones are constantly being developed. New mineral discoveries are made frequently and the number of mining districts increases every year. The remarkable mines being developed in the Cœur d’Alene, Okanagan, Colville, Pine Creek, Cracker Creek and other districts, have placed this region in the front rank of mining interests in the United States, and point to a future of unbroken prosperity for many years. At some point so situated as to reach each of these districts with almost equal facility, and where all the essentials for the reduction of ores, such as coal, iron, wood, limestone, etc., exist or can be cheaply procured, will be established immense reduction works. Such a point is Tacoma, and a project is already well advanced to inaugurate this industry on an extensive scale. A smelting company has been incorporated with a capital stock of $1,000,000.00, and ground has been secured on the water front for the extensive buildings required. The plant will have a daily capacity of two hundred tons at first, but this will be enlarged after the business is well established. President and chief promoter of this enterprise is Mr. Dennis Ryan, proprietor of the famous Hotel Ryan, of St. Paul, and extensively engaged in mining enterprises. The marvelously rich ores of Alaska will be drawn upon largely, and will find here their nearest market. All the indications point to Tacoma as the head of the mining industry in this region not only because of its reduction works, but because of the large investments its capitalists are making in mining properties.