Tacoma and Its Parks 



By George A. H 



Sir Henry Irving, a man of judgment and one wlio 

 had travelled the world over, said : "Tacoma has the 

 most beautiful situation and environment I have ever 

 seen." 



Tacoma, a beautiful city of more than 100,000 inhabi- 

 tants, is on the shores of Puget Sound. It is the gate- 

 way to ]\Iount Tacoma, the wonderful mountain of 

 changing moods, nearly 15,000 feet in altitude, about 

 whose feet lies Rainier National Park. 



This grandest of America's mountains ma\' easily be 

 climbed, and its lower reaches are accessible to the poor- 

 est traveler. Starting from Tacoma, the tourist can go 

 to a living glacier in an automobile, a trip of 70 miles. 

 This ride is without parallel in the world. No matter 

 where the tourist may go, nowhere else can he enter an 

 automobile and find himself at the line of eternal snow 

 after a ride of only four hours, over an almost perfect 



ill,-'' Washington. 



that one may enjoy all this without great effort or hard- 

 ship and with the greatest economy of time and expense. 



Long years before Tacoma was known by any other 

 title, it was far famed as "The City of Homes." The 

 people of Tacoma are a home-loving and home-owning 

 people. The life of the city is in its homes; there throbs 

 the real heart of the city. Tacoma is proud of all those 

 mstitutions which are connected with the home — 

 schools, churches and liliraries. 



Puget Sound is especially favored in having long, cool 

 summers and mild winters, which make it possible to 

 grow a great variety of trees, shrubs and flowers, includ- 

 ing some that are semi-tropical in their habits. 



Rose culture is very popular, and beautiful hedges and 

 beds of roses are seen everywhere, blooming the greater 

 part of the year. English holly and many plants not 

 grown in the East are common in Tacoma gardens. 



ON THE SLOPES OF McKINLEY P.\RK. 



road, many miles of which are paved with concrete. 

 Mile after mile the road passes through the solitude of 

 giant forests, the trees 6, 8 and 10 feet in diameter, their 

 lofty heads towering 150 feet and more toward the sky. 

 One especially thrilling part of the ride is the long ascent 

 up the Niscjually canyon, where the road winds about a 

 precipitous wall, while hundreds of feet below the Nis- 

 qually river roars through its rocky channel. At the en- 

 trance to Rainier National Park is a huge gateway of 

 mammoth logs and a rustic lodge where visitors are 

 registered. 



Within a radius of 70 miles of Tacoma, nature pre- 

 sents a great variety of delightful and wonderful aspects. 

 It would seem that the forces of nature had spent them- 

 selves in creating this land of magnificent mountains, gla- 

 ciers, cataracts and canyons, together with the inexhaus- 

 tible delights of Puget Sound, and the beauty of it all is 



*Siiperiiitendent of Parks, Tacoma, Wash. 



Tacoma's great Stadium, Ijuilt by popular subscription 

 at a cost of $135,000, is a unique aniiihitheatre with 29 

 miles of concrete seats, in tiers, with a comfortable seat- 

 ing capacity of 35,000. Theodore Roosevelt, when speak- 

 ing in the Stadium in April, 1911, said : "I know of noth- 

 ing like it — nothing on this side of the water and noth- 

 ing abroad. In building it, Tacoma has done something 

 that must have a marked effect upon all the other cities 

 in the Union." 



Within the City of Tacoma are 1.030 acres of puljlic 

 "breathing places," separated into twenty parks, ranging 

 in size from a small triangle to one of 638 acres in area. 



With the aim of keeping the parks out of the hands of 

 politicians, the citizens of Tacoma, by vote, created the 

 Metropolitan Park District, controlled by a board of five 

 commissioners, one to be elected each year for a term of 

 five years. The Citv Council, by ordinance, turned over 

 all the park property to the sole control of this district. 



