Editing Tacoma, Washington (section)

===Early history===
[[Image:Mount Rainier overlooking the Port of Tacoma.jpg|thumb|View of Mount Rainier and the Port of Tacoma from [[Browns Point]], 2009]]
The area was inhabited for thousands of years by [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], most recently the [[Puyallup (tribe)|Puyallup]] people, who lived in settlements on the delta.

In 1852, a Swede named Nicolas Delin built a water-powered sawmill on a creek near the head of Commencement Bay, but the small settlement that grew around it was abandoned during the [[Puget Sound War|Indian War of 1855–56]]. In 1864, pioneer and postmaster [[Job Carr]], a Civil War veteran and land speculator, built a cabin (which also served as Tacoma's first post office; a replica was built in 2000 near the original site in "Old Town").<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jobcarrmuseum.org/ |title=Job Carr Cabin Museum |website=Job Carr Cabin Museum}}</ref> Carr hoped to profit from the selection of Commencement Bay as the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad, and sold most of his claim to developer [[Morton M. McCarver]] (1807–1875), who named his project Tacoma City, derived from the indigenous name for the mountain.

Tacoma was incorporated on November 12, 1875, following its selection in 1873 as the western terminus of the [[Northern Pacific Railroad]] due to lobbying by McCarver, future mayor [[John Wilson Sprague]], and others. However, the railroad built its depot in '''New Tacoma''', two miles (3&nbsp;km) south of the Carr–McCarver development. The two communities grew together and joined, merging on January 7, 1884. The transcontinental link was effected in 1887, and the population grew from 1,098 in 1880 to 36,006 in 1890. [[Rudyard Kipling]] visited Tacoma in 1889 and said it was "literally staggering under a boom of the boomiest".<ref>{{cite book |first=Caroline Denyer |last=Gallacci |title=The City of Destiny and the South Sound: An Illustrated History of Tacoma and Pierce County |location=Carlsbad, California |publisher=Heritage Media Corp |year=2001 |pages=49}}</ref>

[[File:Commencement Bay Land Improvement Co. business card.jpg|thumb|left|The Commencement Bay Land and Improvement Co. played a major role in the city's early growth.]]
[[George Francis Train]] was a resident for a few years in the late 19th century. In 1890, he staged a global circumnavigation starting and ending in Tacoma to promote the city. A plaque in downtown Tacoma marks the start and finish line.

In November 1885, white citizens led by then-mayor Jacob Weisbach [[Tacoma riot of 1885|expelled several hundred Chinese residents]] peacefully living in the city. As described by the account prepared by the Chinese Reconciliation Project Foundation, on the morning of November 3, "several hundred men, led by the mayor and other city officials, evicted the Chinese from their homes, corralled them at 7th Street and Pacific Avenue, marched them to the railway station at Lakeview and forced them aboard the morning train to [[Portland, Oregon]]. The next day two Chinese settlements were burned to the ground."

The discovery of gold in the [[Klondike Gold Rush|Klondike]] in 1898 led to Tacoma's prominence in the region being eclipsed by the development of Seattle.

A major tragedy marred the end of the 19th century, when a [[Tacoma streetcar disaster|streetcar accident]] resulted in significant loss of life on July 4, 1900.