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    Old Tacoma
    Old Tacoma
    Old Tacoma
    Ebook185 pages1 hour

    Old Tacoma

    By Caroline Gallacci and Tacoma Historical Society

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    About this ebook

    In 1865, Job Carr paddled a canoe to his new homestead on a small harbor that would become Old Tacoma. The area s notorious reputation as The Wildest Port North of San Francisco s Barbary Coast haunted it for decades after the tall-masted schooners, sailors, brothels, and saloons were gone. Situated on the deepwater shoreline of Commencement Bay to ship timber from the vast tracts surrounding it, Old Tacoma was bypassed by the Northern Pacific terminus in favor of New Tacoma a few miles away. Settled by waves of Scandinavian and Croatian immigrants to work the mills and purse seiners, Old Tacoma became an isolated community. Though industry, shipbuilding, and timber mills gave way to commerce and recreation, the community of Old Tacoma still retains the unique flavor of its colorful past.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMay 17, 2006
    ISBN9781439631065
    Old Tacoma
    Author

    Caroline Gallacci

    Author and Tacoma resident Caroline Gallacci is the cofounder of the Tacoma Historical Society and has been an adjunct professor at various local colleges and universities. In this unique collection of vintage photographs selected from the private collections of local photographers, Gallacci provides a glimpse of the people and places that played a part in Tacoma's unique maritime history.

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      Book preview

      Old Tacoma - Caroline Gallacci

      history.

      INTRODUCTION

      The history of Old Tacoma is a complex mixture of what might have been and what it actually became. When Job Carr arrived in 1864, he had dreams of a Northern Pacific railroad terminus that would enhance both his and his son’s property. However, by the time Job Carr died in 1887, even he knew Tacoma City was not going to be the place he envisioned. By that time, the railroad company had located the terminus two miles away and the residents of Tacoma City had been politically absorbed into the broader jurisdiction of the City of Tacoma. Job Carr’s dream was now simply Old Tacoma.

      A neighborhood evolved rather than a city. The purpose of this history is to show some of the episodes and people responsible for the creation of this unique community. The first chapter introduces the reader to Old Tacoma’s beginnings, a time when it was called Tacoma City and voters had their own separate government. It was also a time when small industries emerged along the south shore of Commencement Bay. There was maritime activity as well, and along with it a certain wildness giving credence to the area’s colorful past legacy of saloons and prostitution.

      While seamen frequented the places of opportunity along Old Tacoma’s Main Street, another type of community was also underway, related specifically to their relationship with Native Americans. The Puyallup Tribe, after all, lived here long before the arrival of Job Carr. Treaties ultimately established a reservation that included, in part, the Puyallup River delta. Maritime commerce, therefore, was confined to the south shore of Commencement Bay. Old Tacoma, as the one area with direct access to the water, was to economically benefit from this particular circumstance.

      The south shore of Commencement Bay became Tacoma’s first port, one that stretched from the Thea Foss Waterway to Point Defiance. The Old Tacoma neighborhood that took shape as a result of this development is illustrated in Chapter Two, where the reader is able to watch the community grow from unplanned disarray to a neighborhood of families supported by a business district and shoreline industry. Chapters Four and Five document life along the shoreline.

      Old Tacoma was an ethnically and racially diverse neighborhood, a matter discussed in Chapter Three. Native American, African American, Jewish, and Asian families were all of part of the community landscape at one time or another. However, the most dominant peoples by far were the Scandinavians and the Croatians, both possessing a seafaring heritage that drew them to Puget Sound. The Croatians established their own fraternal and benevolent organization in Old Tacoma and excelled as boat builders. Scandinavians and Croatians worked together as fishermen.

      This story ends with a collection of images designed to show both continuity and change within the Old Tacoma neighborhood. Periodically, early newspapers would report on striking changes afoot that suggested maybe Old Tacoma should consider changing its name to New Tacoma. For example, in 1918, Peter David’s Spar Tavern building was lauded as the first step in neighborhood modernization. And while change was always a constant, so too was the neighborhood’s insistence on preservation through both marking important sites and creating landmarks of others. What you see today is always what Old Tacoma has been: some things were always changing, and some things will always remain the same.

      One

      THE BEGINNINGS

      NATIVE AMERICANS ON COMMENCEMENT BAY. Early maps of Commencement Bay show the waters off Old Tacoma as a favored fishing area for the Puyallup tribe of Indians. With American settlement came treaties and the creation of the Puyallup Indian Reservation, located at the head of Commencement Bay. For almost a decade after federal officials signed the treaty, the Puyallup Reservation was the only settlement in the area, one that included a church, a Native American cemetery, and a physician. Job Carr stayed at the reservation while deciding where to establish his land claim.

      JOB CARR. In 1864, soon after his discharge from the Union Army, Job Carr learned of a new transcontinental railroad line that was to extend from Lake Superior to Puget Sound. He headed west with a hope to locate the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. When he saw a natural draw sloping gently into Commencement Bay, he shouted, Eureka! Eureka! and rushed to the Olympia land office to file a preemption claim.

      JOB CARR’S CABIN. Before the year ended, Job Carr had built a cabin and enticed his sons, Howard and Anthony, to join him. The brothers, who also filed claims surrounding their father’s, were soon joined by sister Marietta. The cabin became a community center for new settlers, and, in 1869, became the Tacoma City post office. Job Carr was the first postmaster, justice of the peace, and in 1874, the town’s first mayor.

      ANTHONY CARR, OLD TACOMA’S FIRST PHOTOGRAPHER. Anthony’s interest in photography began during the Civil War when he was an intelligence officer sent behind enemy lines to record the topography. He brought his cameras west and began to document the creation of Job Carr’s settlement. In 1869, he married Josie Byrd, whose family had settled several miles south of Commencement Bay.

      THE BEGINNINGS OF TACOMA CITY. In order to acquire his preemption claim, the Carrs had to establish a farm, as seen in the foreground of this image photographed by Anthony Carr, looking southeast from near Job Carr’s cabin. In the distance are the buildings that formed the nucleus of the new town.

      JOB CARR MEMORIAL IN TACOMA CEMETERY. By

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