The Price of a City's Thirst
Tacoma’s struggle to purchase its own waterworks reveals the city's entanglement with Northern Pacific rail interests and the high cost of utility monopolies.
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.
Up to date facts about the water question are eagerly sought after in Tacoma. In a private letter, C.B. Wright said: 'It is not my business to fight any city with a water proposition, but give me a railroad to handle and I am at home.' This explains the situation. Mr. Wright wishes to dispose of the water plant; in fact, he says he will dispose of it and will not be bothered with it. He now has three-fourths of the Tacoma Light and Water Company's stock and also has the Oregon & Washington railroad, and it looks as though he would devote himself to securing its extension to Tacoma rather than bother with the water plant. Now that it is illegal to buy the water and light plant at the price asked, there is much talk among taxpayers about a gravity system from the Green river. There are plenty of sharp business men here who say the decision of City Attorney Murray, to the effect that the ordinance for the purchase of the water plant is illegal, was gotten up at this time to discourage the proposition to build a new plant, on the ground that the city could not raise the money.
“It is not my business to fight any city with a water proposition, but give me a railroad to handle and I am at home.”
Public control of utilities remains a central tension in the Pacific Northwest, mirroring today's debates over public broadband and municipal ownership of power. The struggle in 1893 to break free from private water monopolies is a precursor to modern civic arguments about who truly owns and controls the infrastructure necessary for daily survival.
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