Tacoma’s Ocean Commerce.
Train on Tacoma-Seattle Interurban Railway.
Tacoma’s ocean commerce exceeds in magnitude and value that of every other port on the Pacific Coast with the exception of San Francisco. President James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railway, explained the fact with the epigrammatic remark: “Tacoma has the facilities.” Tacoma possesses one of the finest harbors in the world and has the most extensive wharves and warehouses for handling ocean traffic on the Pacific Coast.
City Waterway from Eleventh Street Bridge.
Tacoma handles the largest share of the foreign trade of the North Pacific Coast, the chief ports of which are Tacoma, Portland and Seattle. The imports and exports of these three ports for ten years from July 1, 1894, to June 30, 1904, inclusive, as shown by the official customs reports, were valued as follows:
| Tacoma | $121,652,289 |
| Portland | 105,590,572 |
| Seattle | 84,911,055 |
Tacoma is the leading port of the Puget Sound customs district, the headquarters of which are at Port Townsend, and which includes Tacoma, Seattle and fourteen other ports. Of the total foreign commerce of the Puget Sound district, Tacoma handles more than 50 per cent., Seattle less than 30 per cent., and the balance is distributed between fourteen other ports in the district. The following are the official figures showing the imports, exports and total foreign commerce of Tacoma, Seattle, and the Puget Sound district for the first six months of 1904:
| Imports. | Exports. | Total Foreign Commerce. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tacoma | $2,835,712 | $5,573,867 | $8,409,579 |
| Seattle | 1,493,455 | 3,071,911 | 4,565,366 |
| Minor ports | 869,176 | 2,633,465 | 3,502,641 |
| Puget S’d Dist. | $5,198,343 | $11,279,243 | $16,477,586 |
In ten years from 1894 to 1903, inclusive, the Puget Sound customs district, of which Tacoma is the chief port, rose from twenty-first to ninth in the magnitude of its foreign commerce among the customs districts of the United States. For the year ending June 30, 1903, Puget Sound was the sixth district in the United States in the tonnage of American and foreign vessels entered and cleared in the foreign trade. The leading customs districts, in the order of their rank in tonnage entered and cleared, are New York, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore, Puget Sound, San Francisco, Galveston, Portland (Maine), and Pensacola.
While Puget Sound ranks ninth among the customs districts of the United States in the magnitude of its ocean commerce, measured by the value of its imports and exports, this district stands first in the United States in exports of manufactured lumber, boards, deals and planks; shingles; fowls, and bristles. Second in exports of sheep, buckwheat, oats, baking powder, cotton cloths, dried herring, canned salmon, hay, malt liquors and manufactures of tin. Third in exports of cycles, ginseng, eider, copper ore, printing paper, milk and onions. Fourth in exports of barley, wheat, wheat flour, bran, middlings and mill-feed, candies, canned fruits and gunpowder. Fifth in exports of eggs and malt. Sixth in exports of furniture, salt, hogs, oysters, hops and nursery stock. Seventh in exports of horses and copper, and eighth in exports of fresh fish.
Oriental Wharves and Warehouses.
Tacoma’s ocean commerce may be classified as foreign and coastwise. The latter includes chiefly shipments to and receipts by water from Alaska, Hawaii and California. The foreign trade of Tacoma extends to every continent on the globe and to the islands of the sea. The coastwise receipts are chiefly ores, salmon and furs from Alaska, and fruits, general merchandise and manufactures from California. The coastwise shipments consist chiefly of merchandise sold by Tacoma jobbers to customers in Alaska, provisions, machinery, lumber, feed, etc.; bullion, coal, lumber and flour to California, and coal, lumber and merchandise to Hawaii. The foreign commerce of the port consists of imports of silk, tea, mattings, Manila hemp, and other Oriental products, ores for the Tacoma smelter, grain bags for Washington wheat, cement and fire-bricks for building purposes, iron and steel and other foreign commodities imported into the United States; and exports the most valuable of which are Washington products, wheat, flour, canned and salt salmon, lumber, bottled beer, barley, hay and oats, besides cotton, domestics, bicycles, tobacco and other products and manufactures of Eastern and Southern States. But by far the greater part of Tacoma’s exports are products of the State or of Tacoma mills.