Prosperous Tacoma Commencement Bay got its modern name from an 1841 surveying party led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes. Wilkes named the bay for, (give you one guess), the place where his survey commenced. What Wilkes found when he visited the modern-day Tacoma land area was a region rich in natural resources that were carefully tended to by the Indigenous peoples, as these were their ancestral lands and waterways. The Puyallup Tribe called the land in Tacoma and surrounding areas home, and they revered the sacred Mount Takhoma, (renamed Mount Rainier by European explorers), and the water that flowed toward the banks of the Salish Sea, or what we today call Puget Sound. They hunted and gathered on the lands around the lakes, rivers, and streams that lay at the base of the majestic mountain, and they fished along the shorelines for year-round sustenance. The first white settler to the region was Nicolas Delin, a Swede who built the area's first water-powered sawmill in 1852. A small community grew up around the mill but was abandoned during the Indian Wars that followed after the signing of the Medicine Creek Treaty. The rich and fertile landscape of the Pacific Northwest was attractive nonetheless, and though the area was remote and notoriously hard to reach, settlers continued to make their way north to the newly-minted Washington Territory. Job Carr and Morton McCarver had each found their way to the region, and by 1864, both were working to put the City of Tacoma on the map. McCarver worked hard to attract the railroad to Tacoma, as the Northern Pacific was looking for the best site to build the terminus of a railroad that was to stretch across the West, originating in Minnesota. In 1873, Tacoma had won the prize of the era when the railroad announced that Commencement Bay would be the opposite of the beginning, but would be the end of the line for the continental railroad, and Seattleites, for lack of a stronger word, were: outraged. The railroad unlocked the region and turned Tacoma into a boomtown. In 1880 the city had roughly 1,098 inhabitants, and just eight years later had swelled to a population of 36,006 people. The city was industrious, and land in Tacoma was fertile and resource-filled. Settlers came from across the nation to try their hands at making a new life in the Pacific Northwest, a call that is still heard by many Americans today as the City of Tacoma continues to grow at a rapid clip. Troubled Tacoma The swift march of industrialization is not without a footprint on the land in Tacoma, however, and in any urban area for that matter. The bulk of Tacoma’s industry, like oil refining, milling, pulp manufacturing, and all manner of industrialization that it took to make the city hum also made a scar on Tacoma’s waterways and its reputation. In the 1930s, the nickname Tacoma Aroma began to infiltrate the Pacific Northwest and beyond because the industrial area of the city was emitting an acrid and sulphuric smell. Simpson Tacoma Kraft, a pulp and paper plant that made pulpwood and linerboard, a type of corrugated cardboard, was likely to blame for the majority of the stench. Although, the refinery and the sheer fact that the industrial area was located on Tacoma's tide flats (a naturally stinky place to be) may have also contributed to the smell. By the 1990s, the Simpson plant had employed new advances in technology and had dramatically reduced its emissions on the Tacoma waterfront, and unsurprisingly, the smell was largely eliminated. But the reputation persisted, and this bad press was said to have depressed real estate prices, even those of raw land in Tacoma, for decades. Another scratch on the shine of Tacoma’s glossy veneer was the detriment of the once pristine Commencement Bay. The pollution assault on the bay was in full force and for much of the 20th century, a large smelting facility poured its refuse into the bay, eventually forming a long peninsula. Commencement Bay became a Superfund site and the Thea Foss Waterway was declared polluted beyond belief in 1983. It was a wake-up call for the region, and less than 10 years later, after diligent and unrelenting cleanup efforts, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that the St. Paul waterway, once one of the most contaminated portions of Commencement Bay was the first marine Superfund site to be fully remediated. Nowadays, with the waterways clean and new life abounding in Commencement Bay, the focus has now turned toward making sure they remain that way through heavy monitoring and regular testing. Tacomans are fighters. They’ve fought with Seattle for prominence and notoriety since the 1850s, and they fought to protect the environment once they realized that they nearly destroyed it. One thing that is not up for a fight about Tacomans though, is that they are a close-knit community filled with hard workers, and it's been that way since day one.

Things to do in the city are limitless, especially if you enjoy being out upon the waterways and land in Tacoma. Of course, a visit to Point Defiance, the largest city park west of the Mississippi is an absolute must-see, and while you’re there you can walk over the new elevated pedestrian bridge connecting you to the Point Ruston Waterfront.

There you can walk a two-mile paved path and explore the sights, shops, dining, theater, and lodging that this up-and-coming area of town offers, and from there you can easily connect to the downtown area for even more walkable explorations of the hippest and most happening parts of the city.