The Quarantine of Tacoma: When a Hotel Became a Prison for Railroad Workers
In April 1898, a single case of smallpox in a Tacoma hotel triggered a massive quarantine that stranded dozens of railroad employees and paralyzed the city's transit network.
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.
TACOMA, Wash., April 29.—Tacoma has a scene set which is not only unusual as to the times of the year but is making extremely inconvenient for the forwarding public, and is hampering the railroad by depriving it of its employees.
About ten days ago a young man came down from Seattle and was employed at the Hotel Miller, where the majority of the railroad men put up, as dispatcher Taylor told. It was discovered that smallpox had broken out on the quarter. Immediately the hotel was quarantined. The city authorities sent in half a dozen men to guard the entrance, and every sort and kind of obstruction was immediately erected around the house.
The occupants were of respectable men, some of whom would have gone out on this day, evening's run. They adopted all sorts of plans to escape, but the marshal and his men were too vigilant.
FORTY-EIGHT SHIPS BEING BUILT FOR UNCLE SAM'S NAVY [Special to The Seattle Star] SEATTLE, April 29.—The competition in last night of two big warships, the Kansas and the Kentucky, in full attention is to the remarkable rate at which the American navy is growing at the present time. Except among naval experts who watch this progress, few persons realize that forty warships are now under construction for the United States, involving expenditure of nearly one hundred million dollars.
These vessels when completed will have cost over $10,000,000 each or three first-class sea-going battleships as good as any afloat... Sixteen are torpedo boat destroyers... Four are heavy harbor defense monitors. One is a great cruiser (a la the New Orleans), and 12 are torpedo boats.
On one of the most notable facts in connection with the vast construction undertaking is its distribution, exhibiting the great change that has taken place in the shipbuilding industry since the organization of the new navy. The first four ships were built by a foreign firm. Today fourteen American concerns are building these ships for this navy, and of these four are scattered alone the Atlantic from Maine to Virginia and two on the Pacific at Portland and at San Francisco.
This 1898 quarantine highlights how quickly public health crises could disrupt local economies before modern infrastructure. The isolation of Tacoma's railroad workers mirrors recent pandemic-era lockdowns, where essential workers were similarly trapped or restricted, showing that the tension between individual liberty, economic function, and public safety is a recurring historical theme.
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