The Rivalry of the Sound: Seattle vs. Tacoma
A critical report from a German newspaper highlights the starkly different development paths of the two boomtowns.
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.
The two main towns on Puget Sound, Seattle and Tacoma, have developed themselves in a very astonishing manner. Real estate in both places has realized such prices as are hardly asked at San Francisco. In both cities hundreds of houses have been built; thousands of dollars were spent on grading streets and building sidewalks. Nevertheless there is a great difference between them. Whereas in Seattle two-thirds of all the business houses are built of stone or brick, calculated to be used for decenniums, in Tacoma they build exclusively wooden buildings, with the exception of a single very elegant stone church. Tacoma depends in all her enterprises on the railroad company, which owns the greatest part of the land on which the city stands. It is entirely different in Seattle. Without any help whatever from any railroad company the three principal streets are graded and leveled at heavy cost. On Front street a sidewalk two miles long leads to the outer edge of town, and sewers have been laid. All this the real estate owners have accomplished with their own money, guided by the deep-rooted conviction that Seattle must become the future metropolis of the Sound.
“Guided by the deep-rooted conviction that Seattle must become the future metropolis of the Sound.”
This 1883 rivalry set the stage for Seattle's eventual dominance. While Tacoma relied on the corporate interests of the Northern Pacific Railroad, Seattle's early 'DIY' urbanism—funded by its own property owners—established a template for the city's self-reliant, often aggressive, growth culture that continues to define its relationship with big tech and industry today.
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