Tacoma and Vicinity. Loan and Trust Company Oakland Land

house as this, and with a population of twenty thousand people to give them patronage, the best attractions in the United States will be drawn to Tacoma as one of the regular “show towns” of the grand transcontinental circuit.

      TACOMA THEATRE.

HOTELS OF THE TERMINAL CITY.

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      Tourists unhesitatingly declare that in this city they find the only really adequate and enjoyable hotel accommodations to be had on the Pacific coast north of San Francisco, and to this one fact is due much of the popularity of the city spread abroad by those who have enjoyed its hospitalities. Recognizing the necessity for such an institution, the Tacoma Land Company erected in 1884 the large and handsome stone and brick hotel building shown in the engraving on the opposite page. It stands on the bluff above the water front, overlooking the bay, river, valley, foothills and mountains. From the veranda and lawn a grand landscape may be seen, the great snowy mass of Mount Tacoma standing out in bold relief against the sky. The possession of such a house of entertainment, elegantly furnished and conducted in first class style by Mr. W. D. Tyler, a most courteous and able manager, renders the city a favorite summer resort and headquarters for those who desire to spend a few weeks viewing the grand scenery of the sound. On another page is given an engraving of the new and elegant Hotel Fife, a large five-story brick structure, recently completed at a cost of $125,000.00. It contains one hundred and twenty-six rooms, and is supplied with all the modern conveniences of gas, water, electric bells, elevator, etc. Hotel Fife is most elegantly furnished, and is conducted on the European plan. Hotel Rochester, recently erected on Tacoma avenue (see engraving on another page), is a large brick edifice, four stories high, and cost $75,000.00. It occupies a commanding site, and is designed for a family hotel, all its rooms being en suite, with bath, electric light and water. It is heated by steam, and has its own electric light plant, laundry and Turkish bath. A number of smaller hotels add to the city’s accommodations for strangers.

      “THE TACOMA”—TACOMA.

GRAIN SHIPMENTS AND FLOURING MILLS.

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      Less than a year has passed since Tacoma entered regularly into the shipping of grain and flour to foreign markets, though practically this business began the present year, after the completion of the tunnel through the mountains. During the year ending June 30, 1888, there were shipped from this port eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand two hundred and thirty-three bushels of grain, and the estimated quantity for the current fiscal year is four million five hundred thousand bushels, requiring a grain fleet of sixty vessels, being an average of one cargo dispatched every six days. Owing to the fact that vessels can enter Puget sound more cheaply than the Columbia river, and can discharge and receive cargo and get to sea again cheaper, charters are much lower here than at Portland, and the price of wheat proportionately higher. For this reason the wheat along the line of the Northern Pacific, which, before the completion of the road over the mountains, was shipped to Portland, now comes to Tacoma. As the Northern Pacific and its branches and connecting lines ramify the entire wheat region east of the Cascades, where twenty million bushels will be produced this year, it can be seen that an estimate of four million five hundred thousand bushels for the present year is not a large one. Wheat warehouses, with a capacity of five hundred thousand bushels, have been built on the water front, and are being doubled in size. The Northern Pacific Elevator Co. is erecting a four-story elevator, with a capacity of a million bushels, and has elevators and warehouses at all the principal shipping points in the interior. The only steam flouring mill on Puget sound is located here. Not only is this port superior to Portland as a general shipping point for grain and flour, but it has special advantages in the China trade, which consumes twenty-five hundred barrels per month of Pacific coast flour. Recognizing this, gentlemen engaged largely in manufacturing flour in Oregon are erecting an immense mill with a daily capacity of one thousand barrels, which will begin grinding next season.

      HOTEL ROCHESTER.

      CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. FARRELL & DARMER, ARCHITECTS

      TACOMA.

COAL AND IRON RESOURCES.

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      Coal shipments from the port of Tacoma average twenty-seven thousand tons a month, being the product of mines situated in the region immediately tributary to the city and along the line of the Northern Pacific. These mines are owned and operated by the Carbon Hill Coal Co., the Wilkeson Coal and Coke Co., the Tacoma Coal Co., the South Prairie Coal Co., all in the Puyallup region, and the Bucoda Coal Co., south of the city. Nearly all these shipments go by sail and steamer to the San Francisco market. The Durham coal mines, sixty miles east of Tacoma, are just being opened, and provision is being made for a daily output of three hundred tons. This is fine coking coal, and will be used by the great iron smelters to be erected at Cle Elum. The mine is the property of the Pacific Investment Co. At Roslyn, on the east side of the mountains, are the mines of the Northern Pacific Coal Co., whose headquarters are in this city. Inexhaustible in quantity, and much of it making the finest quality of coke, the coal deposits about Tacoma must build up a very large city here. Iron ore of a superior quality lies in immense and easily accessible deposits almost at the city’s gate. Coal, coke and iron, with limestone in abundance, suggest the great manufacturing possibilities, to take advantage of which an immense enterprise is already on foot, in the form of a gigantic iron smelting plant, to be erected at Cle Elum, near the Roslyn mines, by the Moss Bay Iron Co., one of the largest institutions of its kind in England, and the huge reduction works soon to be erected at Tacoma by a company recently organized for that purpose.

      HOTEL FIFE—TACOMA. FARRELL & DARMER, ARCHITECTS.