A resume of TACOMA’S superior advantages for manufacturing would be
incomplete without reference to its abundant supply of manufacturing
sites. There are twelve square miles of tide and river flats immediately
east of the city which, owing to a combination of circumstances, were
until recently incapable of private ownership and occupation. At the
south end or head of Commencement Bay there is a level plain traversed
near its westerly side by the Puyallup River. The lands on the easterly
side of the river were for many years set apart by the government as
a part of the Puyallup Indian reservation, but recently these have
been sold by order of the government. The King County line extended
also to the Puyallup River and the tide and river flats at the head
of the bay—most advantageously located for commercial and industrial
purposes—being without their jurisdiction, were incapable of improvement
by the city or Pierce County. But in 1901 the reservation lands were
legally annexed to Pierce County, of which TACOMA is the county seat, and
the occupation of this enormous area of flat lands adjacent to tidewater
has just begun.
A substantial bridge has this year been erected by the city of TACOMA
across the Puyallup River at a convenient point for access to the annexed
lands from the manufacturing district which occupies the flats west of
the Puyallup River. The federal government has made a complete survey of
the harbor of TACOMA, the plans for the improvement of which contemplate
the construction of a series of waterways extending from deep water in
the bay a considerable distance to the south. The City Waterway, which
is being dredged to a width of 550 feet and depths increasing as it
approaches the bay from fifteen to thirty feet, under a contract awarded
by the federal government in January, 1903, extends as far south as
Twenty-third Street, or nearly twenty city blocks from the original
harbor line. Miles of additional waterfront and wharves will thus be
obtained at the head of the bay, exclusive of the natural shore line some
ten miles in extent from Brown’s Point to Point Defiance. Railroads and
steamships will have direct and immediate access to the very heart of
this district. The acquisition and improvement by the construction of
roads, bridges and waterways of 6,000 acres of land immediately adjacent
to the city, make it possible for many more manufacturers to secure sites
and utilize the limitless power resources of TACOMA, the great INDUSTRIAL
CITY OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.
[Illustration: Loading Lumber at Tacoma Mill Company’s Wharf.]
TACOMA is now the leading manufacturing city of Washington and the
Pacific Northwest. The industrial development of the city since 1900 has
been phenomenal. According to the federal census there were in 1900 381
manufacturing establishments at TACOMA, whose aggregate invested capital
was $8,146,691, of which there were 385 proprietors and in whose employ
there were 293 salaried officials and clerks and 4,347 wage-earners.
Of this total number of wage-earners in manufacturing and mechanical
industries at TACOMA, 4,104 were men, while only 243 were women or
children under the age of 16 years. The total value of the products,
including custom work and repairing, of the 381 establishments at TACOMA
for the year preceding the taking of the census was $12,029,497.
_MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED NEW MILLS AND FACTORIES HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE
LIST OF TACOMA’S MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES DURING THE FOUR YEARS THAT HAVE
ELAPSED SINCE THE FEDERAL CENSUS WAS TAKEN. THAT IS AN AVERAGE OF MORE
THAN TWO NEW FACTORIES EVERY MONTH. MANY OF THE OLDER ESTABLISHMENTS HAVE
DOUBLED OR TREBLED THEIR CAPACITY DURING THE SAME PERIOD._
No complete summary of the operations of TACOMA’S manufacturing
establishments can be presented for comparison with the census report
of 1900. But from written reports submitted to the Tacoma Daily News by
some of the leading manufacturing concerns in TACOMA, it appears that
during the calendar year 1903, one hundred and thirty-five representative
manufacturers in the city employed an average of 6,796 wage-earners
during the year, while the value of the finished product of these
establishments alone for the same year was $28,932,295, and the cost
of permanent improvements or additions to the plants during the year
was $1,129,550. In other words, 135 out of 500 to 600 establishments
that would now be classified by the census as manufacturing concerns in
this city employed 2,349 more wage-earners in 1903 than were employed
by a total of 389 establishments during the census year, while the
value of the output of these 135 establishments in 1903 was nearly two
and one-half times as great as the total value of the product of 389
establishments in 1900.