Early 20th Century Tacoma in Photos (22. January 2007, 22:20 by Derek Young) ~ Where Is Our History?
Seventeen photos of early 20th century Tacoma – a last minute impulse buy from eBay. I hope you enjoy them. It’s a different world now.
(Click each photo to enlarge)
Tacoma Hotel
Point Defiance
Conservatory, Wright Park
Lincoln Park High School
Country Club at American Lake
Point Defiance Pavilion
Broadway Looking South
City Hall
Pacific Ave North from 13th
Armory and Courthouse
Public Library and Courthouse
11th Street from A Street
Retail Business District
Harbor Scene
11th Street Bridge
11th Street Looking East
Birdseye View of Tacoma – Mt. Tacoma in Distance
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Beautiful photos — always fun to see the history. 11th Street sure looked busy back then. Talk about your feet on the street!
1 | Posted by KevinFreitas | Jan 22, 11:07 PM
For such a gritty city, Tacoma sure looked austere!
Great Tacoma trivia- I had no idea Lincoln High was originally Lincoln Park High.
I wish we still had all those old buildings on Broadway!
2 | Posted by morgan | Jan 22, 11:25 PM
More evidence that the world’s ability to create good-looking buildings was lost around WWII.
3 | Posted by Scott Hunter | Jan 23, 07:35 AM
Great photos. Could not help but focus on the old Fidelity Building at the corner of 11th and Broadway, My Father had a shoe store on the Broadway side. Notice the great detailing on the windows. Hunter is sure correct.It was replaced by the Woolworth Building!
4 | Posted by michael buchanan | Jan 23, 07:52 AM
Great find! The photos were much nicer than the ebay listing led one to believe. Thanks for sharing your win.
5 | Posted by Dave L. | Jan 23, 09:02 AM
Thanks Derek, these are great.
Also a small plug for anyone who wants to see my recent Ebay-acquired postcard of UPS, circa 1910, when it was located where Jason Lee is now.
6 | Posted by UPSPatrick | Jan 23, 09:34 AM
anybody know when the rainier brewery paid the licensing rights to change mt tacoma to mt rainier? that’s pretty cool, huh
7 | Posted by nitsuj | Jan 23, 11:47 AM
Yea, Lincoln Park High; pretty interesting isn’t it.
Here’s another trivia fact for you. Lincoln Park, directly adjacent to the school, used to have a cool goldfish pond;
I found that out from a postcard from the late teens.
Also, if you look at the top of the picture of Lincoln you can see the streetcar power lines that turned at 38’th st and headed down Yakima to PLU.
I still cringe every time I see pictures of the old courthouse before it was torn down.
8 | Posted by Nick | Jan 23, 05:07 PM
You can still see remains of what was probably the goldfish pond. It has been filled in and has various plants growing in it.
10 | Posted by Lee | Jan 24, 04:57 AM
Nice pics.
If you don’t want to hunt on eBay and/or want to support your local library, the Tacoma Public Library reproduces photos at very reasonable costs. They also have a great, searchable archive of some of their photos available from the “Tacoma Past & Present” part of their website.
http://search.tacomapubliclibrary.org/images/default.asp?bisc=1
11 | Posted by heather | Jan 24, 11:46 AM
Tacoma Public Library reproduces photos at very reasonable costs.
The TPL has a great database of photos – for research. Unfortunately, I have also been told that under no circumstance are the TPL images to be used on a website for any purpose. Period. We had asked for licensing terms for a very legitimate downtown revitalization project and was told there was no way to accommodate us because we would need the images for the web. “Even if it was for the good of the city?” “No.” But if we wanted to print paper flyers instead with our message, that was no problem.
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