A Telescope for Tacoma’s Frontier Scholars
A Brooklyn astronomer journeys to Tacoma to secure books and equipment for a new boys' college, betting that clear Puget Sound skies will change the future of the territory.
Fred E. Plummer, of Brooklyn, who has just returned from Tacoma, is engaged in an uncommon mission. There are few people in Brooklyn who do not remember Bishop Paddock, who left Brooklyn a few years ago and went to Tacoma as Missionary Bishop of Washington Territory. Chas. B. Wright, a wealthy gentleman of Philadelphia and an earnest helper of the Bishop, gave an endowment of $50,000 upon the completion of a seminary for girls at Tacoma, and promised a like sum for a boys' college to be erected before February 1, 1886. The building has been completed and the endowment has been secured. Plummer returns to request donations of specimens in natural history and books of service in a college. He says he will find somebody who will present the new college with a telescope. Plummer is a member of the American Astronomical Society, and he says the clear skies of Tacoma will make a good telescope twice as useful there as in the East.
“Plummer is a member of the American Astronomical Society, and he says the clear skies of Tacoma will make a good telescope twice as useful there as in the East.”
In 1885, Tacoma was rapidly rebranding itself as a 'City of Destiny' by importing East Coast educational institutions and culture. Today, that same drive for civic status through intellectual infrastructure continues to define the region's growth, though the 'frontier' has shifted from the classroom to the tech campus.
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