Tacoma Takes a Win in the War of the Rails
Tacoma boosters celebrate a victory as the Great Northern Railroad prepares to move its commissary operations from Seattle to Tacoma.
At last Seattle is on the defensive. The King County metropolis has been grabbing everything in sight that belonged to Tacoma and has kept this city constantly fighting to keep what it had, with the odds against Tacoma. But things are looking different, and the howl that is arising from the Seattlites is sweet music for Tacoma boosters. The Great Northern is going to run its transcontinental trains right through Seattle and Tacoma will be the terminus. This means that trains will be made up here. It means that the commissary department of the dining cars will be located here. And that is worth $10,000 a month. Seattle does not like to let go. She is deluging Jim Hill with telegrams and protests, for he has ordered the commissary department moved to Tacoma June 1. Now let the Tacoma Boosters get busy and see to it that Seattle does not cajole Hill into changing his mind.
“Seattle does not like to let go. She is deluging Jim Hill with telegrams and protests.”
The fierce, zero-sum competition for regional economic dominance between Seattle and Tacoma defined the turn of the century. Today, while regional cooperation is prioritized through the Puget Sound Regional Council, the ghosts of these 'booster' rivalries still surface in debates over transit infrastructure and port investment.
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