Tacoma Officials Accuse Land Commission of Favoring the Land Company
City leaders head to Olympia to challenge harbor lines they say were drawn to benefit the Tacoma Land Company rather than the city.
TACOMA, Sept. 3.—Mayor Orr, City Attorney Wickersham, President Harns of the city council, and Councilmen Lister, Cavemier, Hartman and Watson will go to Olympia tomorrow to look over the maps of the Tacoma harbor waterways as fixed by the state land commission. Some city officials have come to the conclusion—by what facts or arguments is not yet known—that the state land commission has sided in a biased manner with the Tacoma Land Company in this matter and against the best interests of the city. The city officials hope to have the lines as fixed by the land commission changed in favor of the city.
“Some city officials have come to the conclusion ... that the state land commission has sided in a biased manner with the Tacoma Land Company in this matter and against the best interests of the city.”
The fight over Tacoma's harbor lines was a fight over who gets to define the public waterfront—city, state, or private land company. That argument has never really gone away in Puget Sound, where shoreline maps, fill and port boundaries still carry enormous value.
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