Give and Take: How We Shape The Landscape of Tacoma

Like any place, Tacoma is continually evolving. There’s a constant ebb and flow between the natural world and the industrial- things fall out of use, break down, and are reformed into something new. Rivers deposit sediment until we dredge it up. Trees grow until then we cut them down. We build houses and lumber mills, only for them to fade with time. People have undeniably shaped the landscape of Tacoma over time, despite nature’s resilience. 

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The lumber industry was booming in Tacoma in the late 1800s. The first mill at the Dickman site opened in 1889, and after changing hands a few times was eventually purchased by Ralph Dickman in 1922. He passed it on to his son, and the mill continued to operate until its closure in 1977. By that point, it was the last sawmill still operating on the waterfront. 

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Two years later, a fire destroyed the vacant mill. Most of the pilings survived, and they remained standing for decades until they were finally removed in 2024 due to pollution concerns. They had been coated with creosote, a toxic substance used to preserve wood. Over time, creosote exposure caused measurable damage to the waterfront’s marine ecosystem. The state has spent millions removing the pilings, restoring the mill’s 15-ton head saw, installing sculpture art by Mary Coss, and creating a public park. The mill’s original concrete foundations remain. 

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Unlike at Dickman Mill Park, there are no historic markers or commemorative sculptures on the Inner Hylebos Peninsula. Thanks to Marvin Boland’s photography, archived in the Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Room, we can still understand the history of the area. In 1918, 6 acres were purchased near the mouth of the Hylebos, filled in, and turned into The Tidewater Mill. It operated until at least 1927, boasting enough moorage space to load multiple boats at a time. Even with the library archives, not much information is readily available about the mill. We know that it could process up to 100,000 feet of boards each day, and most of its lumber was exported. One record, from 1925 describes a ship visiting both the Tidewater Mill and the Dickman Mill before departing for Australia. Some time around 1930, a photo from the Richards Studio features the mill, which the archive describes as “abandoned” by that time.  

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Like the rest of the water in and around Commencement Bay and the Port of Tacoma, the Hylebos Waterway has not escaped the consequences of industrialization. It has undergone intensive restoration efforts in recent decades. Now, the Inner Hylebos Peninsula is owned and maintained by the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and is one of the Port of Tacoma’s public access sites providing intentional habitat for native species. 

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Nowhere in Tacoma is history more readily visible than in Swan Creek Park and the Salishan neighborhood. The land has changed hands countless times over the years. At one point, it was part of the Puyallup reservation. By the 1940s, the federal government purchased parcels of land from independent owners to begin constructing over a thousand homes for what they called the Portland Avenue Defense Housing Project, soon renamed Salishan. The neighborhood was built quickly to house the thousands of people into the Tacoma area in search of wartime jobs. 

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At the end of the war, 400 houses were demolished, as they had originally intended. Others were gradually vacated until another large demolition in the early 1950s- this left behind the grid of streets in what we now know as Swan Creek Park. The remaining residences became low income housing. In the following decades, the use of the land was up for debate. The City proposed a landfill, but citizens vehemently objected and it became a park instead. Gradually, the city acquired and added surrounding property. At one point, in 1971, the county proposed mining the canyon through which Swan Creek ran, but once again citizens objected and defended the park. The park has continued to evolve and change- mountain bike trails were discussed as early as 1990. In 2021, they added new restrooms, picnic shelters, more parking, and a large dog park. Ecological restoration is ongoing. 

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Even before the surge of industry in the 20th century, we had already begun to reshape the landscape. European-Americans recognized immense agricultural potential when they arrived in the area in the 1800s. The Puyallup and Muckleshoot tribes, who had been stewards of the land for thousands of years, were forced out of their traditional homelands so white settlers could move in. Their new farms were prosperous, but they faced problems- the river was prone to flooding and meandering, and frequent log jams made navigation difficult. Determined, they fought back. They channelized the river, straightening it and building levees to contain it. They devised ways to reduce log jams, and they built a hydroelectric dam, effectively blocking salmon and other native fish from upstream habitat. At the mouth of the river, where there had been an expansive delta, they dug out new waterways and built up wharfs, building the port.

 

By 1983, the EPA placed Commencement Bay (into which the Puyallup River flows) on the Superfund National Priorities List. Since then, efforts have been made in the bay, the Port of Tacoma, and the Puyallup River to increase water quality and mitigate the damage inflicted over the past hundred years. Studies indicate that the Puyallup River does not yet meet state water quality standards. 

 

The natural and the anthropogenic are interwoven everywhere we look. Large scale topics, like Superfund sites or matters of urban planning or industry are usually a result of the actions of corporations or governing bodies. But individuals leave marks too, in all the spaces in between. A seed from an apple tossed to a friend germinates and grows into a tree. A car is parked and never driven again. While our negative impacts add to the damage done on the larger scale, those large-scale issues also often overshadow any good intentions we have. We work to restore habitats and replant logged areas, all while new warehouses are built and new toxins are spilled into rivers. That doesn’t mean we should give up, but rather that we need to organize as communities and residents to stand up for the region we love. If we’re lucky, we’ll have the chance to fix the transgressions of previous generations while trying to avoid even more damage.