Tacoma's One-Dollar Land Deal Lures an Iowa Rolling Mill
The Lake View Land Company deeds fifty acres south of Tacoma to Burlington, Iowa, mill managers for a dollar, betting a new plant will follow the subsidy.
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.
TACOMA, July 30.—[Special.]—Fifty acres of land, just south of Lake View, were deeded today to the managers of the Burlington, Ia., rolling mills for $1, the same being a donation, or subsidy, to the company by the Lake View Land Company. The land cost the land company about $10,000. These mills are the ones for which a subsidy was asked, in the sum of $100,000, from the commercial bodies and business men of this city. The plant is being prepared for shipment at Burlington. The transfer made today by J. R. Houghton was the first transaction to be placed on record showing that the plant is to be brought here.
“Fifty acres of land, just south of Lake View, were deeded today to the managers of the Burlington, Ia., rolling mills for $1.”
Cities still compete with tax breaks, free land and infrastructure to lure employers. Tacoma's 1894 subsidy package is an early local version of the same booster argument: public cost now, jobs and growth later.
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