Caroline Gallacci - Tacomas Proctor District

In 1873, when the Northern Pacific Railroad selected the south shore of Commencement Bay as its terminus, the bluffs overlooking the wharves were covered with a dense forest. The tangled web of undergrowth beneath the cedar and Douglas fir made travel through the woods a challenge. So too did the swamps created by the rains and snows. Early settlers were therefore also loggers, as land was cleared for urban development and Tacoma gradually expanded outward from the railroad terminal wharves. The first settlers would have heard the sounds of dynamite explosions and endured the smoky air while stumps and undergrowth made way for streets and buildings. Tacomas Proctor District, located some two miles west of downtown, was created in this fashion, but it was a gradual process as the technology was not there to quickly clear-cut the land. (Photograph by Thomas Rutter.)

The logging of Tacomas North End is a story yet to be told. Portable mills were scattered throughout the area, with the Northern Manufacturing Company mill located in the Proctor District between North Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth Streets. Photographer Hattie King captured this group logging Wrights Park in 1885, and it can be surmised that similar folk also helped clear other parts of Tacomas urban forests.

By 1907, developers could cart their logs to one of the many mills lining Commencement Bay below the citys North End. In 1889, Allen C. Mason considered building a mill, but the idea never became a reality. The Tacoma Ledger newspaper reporter announcing his intent called Mason the Weyerhaeuser of the Pacific. This photograph was taken from Allen C. Masons estate on North Stevens Street.

In the 1880s, before the advent of the streetcar, Tacomans traveled to the far reaches of the North End to enjoy the sport of horse racing. Not much has been written about the facility, and its date of construction is unknown. It is visible, however, in the upper left corner of this map. Racing adherents situated the track west of North Union Avenue on land owned by the state. With time, bicycle racing and general track events replaced the horses, and eventually the wood from the judges stand was used to construct a house on North Washington Street. Though this map is undated, it was likely created in the early 1890s. Jefferson would become North Proctor Street. The mapmaker, a little unclear as to the location of the streetcar line, documents it running along North Washington Street to Puget Park. Another rail line runs north and terminates close to the racetrack, where riders could transfer to the streetcars heading to and from downtown Tacoma.

The existence of the Pierce County Courthouse, completed in 1893, explains why today there is a Proctornot a JeffersonDistrict in Tacomas North End. Upon discovering that there was already a Jefferson Street downtown, the city council had to come up with another name for the suburban street. Members settled upon Proctor to honor the architect of the courthouse. When John G. Proctor died in 1925, Pacific Builder and Engineer called him an aggressive pioneer in the architectural field in the West, having designed one of the earlier Washington State capitol buildings, now the Department of Education offices. In 1890, he designed and built his family home in South Tacoma on a street named Ester. As the city began surveying and grading the street system and connecting the various plats into a coordinated whole, engineers linked Ester and Jefferson and, rather than calling the new roadway Ester, opted for Proctor, whose house stood on its southern end.

When Allen C. Mason arrived in Tacoma in 1883, he was a young man of 28 determined to strike it rich speculating in real estate. He became, according to the Tacoma Daily Ledger , A signal example of that distinctive American character, the successful young man, who rises to prominence ... with a wonderful rapidity. He was only 65 when he died in 1920, but by that time his name had become associated with the development of Tacomas North End. Masons contributions were many. He platted land stretching from the Proctor District to Point Defiance. His gift of Puget Park to the city, and his wish to see a system of parks and boulevards (North Union Avenue, for example), predated similar reform measures in other cities. And most important, he saw the importance of public transportation as the means to connect downtown Tacoma with the outer reaches of the city.