Part 1

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.