Tacoma Fights the Railroad for Its Own Waterfront
At a state land commission hearing, city officials and citizens demand a wider public harbor line to keep the Northern Pacific and Tacoma Land Company from controlling the waterway.
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.
OLYMPIA, Sept. 4.—[Special.]—A number of Tacoma citizens, including representatives of the city and the railroad and land companies, appeared before the state land commission today to be heard in the matter of the harbor line location. Attorney Wickersham presented a petition asking the board, in establishing the harbor line area in front of the city, to so amend the plat prepared by A. McL. Hawks as to make it conform to the map made by the old commission in 1891; particularly that a change be made in the present map so that from South Fourth Street prolonged, and thence running northwesterly to the city wharves, the area be increased to 500 feet width, and that an additional 100 feet be added to the shore side, which has now a 100-foot area; further, that the waterway from said South Fourth Street prolonged to South Twenty-third Street, adjacent to the present filled wharves, be increased to Fifteenth Street from 500 to 600 feet, and from there to Twenty-third Street to be as wide as will make it convenient for shipping, and that the strip on either side of said waterway be reserved as a harbor line 100 feet wide, and that 100 feet reserve be made on either side of the Puyallup waterway. This petition was signed by the mayor, president of the board of public works and City Attorney Wickersham.
During his address, and in reply to a question by Commissioner Brainerd, Attorney Wickersham said that the Tacoma Land Company and the railroad company had always acted in a way detrimental to the city of Tacoma. It was also said that a reserve 100 feet wide around the waterway was necessary, and if not so widened the Northern Pacific company and the land company would own the entire waterway, and all the excavations would be for the benefit of said companies. P. C. Sullivan, who appeared for the land company, took the position that they did not contend for a reserve on the waterway. W. H. Harris argued in favor of the advantages of the plan proposed by the old map, on which the waterway was 500 feet wide to Twelfth Street and narrowed to 100 at Twenty-third. On the present map it narrows from 400 feet to 100.
“If not so widened the Northern Pacific company and the land company would own the entire waterway, and all the excavations would be for the benefit of said companies.”
The hearing captures a familiar Washington tension: public waterfront and harbor access versus the private companies that own the adjacent land and rail. Modern fights over port leases, shoreline access and public trust doctrine are the direct descendants of this argument.
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