Construction Begins on Massive Waterfront Terminals
A new industrial landscape is rising on the tide flats as the Milwaukee railway begins an extensive pile-driving project.
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.
A big pile driver is hammering piles into the muddy beach along Front street for the new waterfront terminals of the Milwaukee railway from Old Town to the smelter. Work was started on this job by J. M. Bruce & Company yesterday and the first piles are being put in south of the Defiance Lumber company's mill. Other pile drivers will be started before the close of the week and in a few days a large force of men will be on this job. After the piles are driven, they will be sawed off and a street built on top of them about 40 feet wide. The tracks of the company will be laid on one side and 30 feet left for public use.
“A big pile driver is hammering piles into the muddy beach along Front street.”
This project permanently altered the Tacoma waterfront, transforming the natural tide flats into the industrial corridor that defines the port today. The labor and engineering feats of this era are the foundational layers beneath current efforts to reclaim or redevelop the Ruston Way corridor.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.