Pierce county is fast becoming a network of transcontinental railroads
centering in Tacoma, which, coupled with the steamboat traffic on
the Sound, gives the county splendid traffic facilities. Pierce county
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for years was a non-competitive railroad point, the Northern Pacific
being the only road to enter its vast fields of wealth. Within the
last two years, however, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the
Union Pacific system, and the Great Northern, realizing the wealth
of the county and the importance of Tacoma as a manufacturing center,
the value of her perfect harbor for shipping, the vastness of her
great stretch of level tidelands for factory sites and terminal
yards, and the low cost at which freight can be transferred from the
rails to the sails or _vice versa_, have entered the field and are
now spending $11,000,000 on construction and terminal work in the
city of Tacoma. The addition of these new roads means a wonderful
impetus to the trade of Tacoma. The Tacoma Eastern railroad, a
beautiful scenic route, beginning at Tacoma, runs in a southeasterly
direction through a wonderfully fertile country and vast forests
of splendid timber, to Rainier National Park and Mount Rainier
(Mt. Tacoma). Several trolley lines are in operation, reaching all
the near-by towns and connecting Tacoma and Seattle.
In addition to these lines, many steamboats and crafts of all kinds,
plying the waters of Puget Sound and the Pacific ocean, find abundant
wharfage and anchorage in the harbor of Tacoma. The products of
the world in large quantities pass through Tacoma in process of
distribution. A constant stream of small crafts, running about
the waters of the county, accommodate the local traffic.