The Battle for Tacoma's Waterfront
City officials fight to stop Northern Pacific Railroad from creating a permanent monopoly on the Narrows coastline.
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The city council is becoming more and more of the opinion that one of the main reasons for the Northern Pacific building its Point Defiance-Narrows line is to completely bottle up the waterfront on the west line of the city so it will have a monopoly of this great stretch for all time, as the city grows and extends over to the west side. A. R. Titlow presented maps to the judiciary committee showing the impact of these plans. The committee held up the franchise, and an effort will be made to have the company run its tracks higher on the bluff to avoid blocking the waterfront. On the present plans, the company will take all the waterfront for a stretch of 15 miles or more along the Narrows, leaving no chance for private or municipal wharves.
“There will be no chance for private or municipal wharfs in the whole distance.”
Tacoma's long-standing tension between industrial rail access and public waterfront access remains a core planning issue. Today, the struggle continues through the lens of environmental remediation and the revitalization of the Ruston Way corridor versus remaining industrial operations.
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