The Real Estate Titan Who Fell to Earth
Allen C. Mason, the man who built the Tacoma boom, sees his mortgage empire collapse under the weight of taxes and hard times.
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.
Allen C. Mason, the great 'head up, tail tip, get there' hustler, has placed his Mason Mortgage Loan Company in the hands of a receiver. Mason came here from Illinois almost penniless, and in less than four years had a fortune said to be worth $1,000,000. He sat astride the real estate boom, and from a little office 'hole-in-the-wall' developed into beehive apartments in his own building on the corner of A and Tenth streets. His was the busiest office in town, attracting thousands of Eastern dollars. He incorporated his private business into the Mason Mortgage Loan Company, and alongside partners, mowed the forest to the north of the city, selling lots four and five miles from the heart of the city and building an elegant electric railroad to carry people to and fro. His embarrassment results from paying interest on money secured from Eastern capitalists for Tacoma realty holders, paying high taxes, and failing to secure a reduction in assessed valuations during hard times. Still, Mason does not despair, pledging full payment to everybody and claiming he remains as enthusiastic as ever.
“The seven lean kine ate up the seven fat kine. Tacoma's lean city and county managers have devoured the fat real estate man.”
Allen C. Mason’s rise and fall in the 1890s serves as a cautionary tale of the city's perpetual boom-and-bust cycle. Just as modern developers face criticism for over-speculation during Seattle’s recent growth spurts, Mason’s reliance on Eastern capital and rapid transit expansion highlights the fragile architecture of the 'growth machine.'
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