The Rivalry That Built the Sound
In 1887, C.B. Wright, a key figure in the development of Tacoma, reflects on the 'nip and go' panic that forced the Northern Pacific terminus to choose between Tacoma and Seattle.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As Mr. C. B. Wright entered the office of the Tacoma Hotel, he remarked, 'I have resigned wearing this hat,' touching his light stove-pipe hat. When a fellow mistook him for a member of a minstrel company, Wright joked about the confusion. After the laughter subsided, the conversation turned to the growth of the region. Asked why the railroad terminal was built at Tacoma rather than Seattle, Wright explained, 'We were at Tenino when the panic of '73 struck us. We had to get somewhere. Though the charter had fixed this place as the terminus, we would have struck off to Olympia if we could have found a harbor there. We reached Tacoma just eight days ahead of our contract. We could not have lost time to go to Seattle. We had no time to spare... it was a nip and go with us, however.' Regarding the potential for a Union Depot, Wright dismissed the public clamor as premature: 'The tracks will no doubt be down on the flats somewhere, as the heavy grade at the present station makes it difficult to stop trains. But a union depot—it is too soon for that.' He concluded by noting his intent to stop spending his own money to develop the town, saying, 'This town will have to take care of itself now. I have spent from three to four years of strenuous effort here to put it on its feet, and I don't propose to spend any more.'
“We reached here just eight days ahead of our contract and we were awful glad to get here. We could not have lost time to go to Seattle.”
Wright’s 1887 frustration with market volatility and the 'nip and go' scramble for infrastructure echoes today's Seattle, where civic leaders still grapple with the legacy of boom-and-bust development and the struggle to align transit hubs with dense urban growth.
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