Port Townsend Vows Boycott Over Tacoma's Dry Dock Gambit
The Key City accuses its rival to the south of sabotaging its bid for a stationary dry dock — and threatens to take its trade to Portland and San Francisco instead.
Port Townsend is very indignant over the attempt of Tacoma persons to prevent the construction of a stationary dry dock at the Key City. The Leader says: "Port Townsend merchants will never buy a dollar's worth of goods from Tacoma if they can avoid it. They will buy from San Francisco, Portland or Pysht, for that matter. Tacoma has brought this feeling upon itself. The mean blow at the Port Townsend dry dock is not the first we have had from that source."
“Port Townsend merchants will never buy a dollar's worth of goods from Tacoma if they can avoid it... Tacoma has brought this feeling upon itself.”
Puget Sound's towns once warred openly over docks, rail lines and federal largesse, because a single piece of infrastructure could decide which port thrived and which withered. That same zero-sum scramble for shipyards, ports and federal projects still defines regional politics around Puget Sound today.
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