The Depot That Took Twenty Years

The Northern Pacific depot job has started. At 10 o'clock this morning a big steam shovel with many a wheeze and groan stuck its nose into the black sand of the Northern Pacific yards at the southwest corner of Fifteenth and Dock streets and gouged out a yard of earth, beginning the improvements which, when finished, will have cost $2,000,000 to be placed in Tacoma in the next two years. For 20 years the Northern Pacific has promised a new depot in Tacoma, and 200 citizens were on hand to see the first physical evidence of fulfillment of that long promise. When they saw the big shovel start up and begin tearing the bluff down, they concluded that at last there was some prospect of activity. The company has a train of over 30 new construction cars on hand to take the dirt away, divided into two trains. All the ground for the present is being hauled round the head of the bay and out the Dempsey spur to be dumped on the tideflats. The steam shovel was sent into the high bluff at Fifteenth street diagonally across Dock street and it will then run south down along the side of the hill, emptying onto the cars on the west track of the Dock street level lines of the company. The work started this morning will not be finished for many months as there are several acres to be dug out to a depth of about an average of 30 feet.