All entries by this author

Hill and Dale club plants sunshine at soldiers’ home

Nov 2nd, 2011 | By
Hill and Dale club plants sunshine at soldiers’ home

For the past three years, members of the Hill and Dale District of garden clubs have been planting daffodil bulbs at the Orting Soldiers’ Home.  This year the district was a little short of money and none of the local nurseries had bulbs to donate, however, the the home is facing cutbacks and the residents
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J.E. Berkheimer’s Mfg. Co.

Oct 26th, 2011 | By
J.E. Berkheimer’s Mfg. Co.

Remember when, for a period of time, some Tacoma houses had tarpaper roofs with shiny bits of mica on top?  Those roofs were probably made at Jesse Berkheimer’s plant on South M Street. Berkheimer, born in Delhi, Indiana, moved to Minneapolis as a young man and worked in the roofing business.  He wanted to go
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All roads lead to Rhodes

Oct 4th, 2011 | By

At the end of the 19th and turn of the 20th century, Tacoma was rich with department stores.  Gross Brothers, built in 1889 at the current site of the Pantages Theater, was the first.  Peoples Store followed six years later at the southeast corner of 11th and Pacific, and then Stone-Fisher-Lane on the corner of
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What men and women did with time on their hands

Aug 24th, 2011 | By
What men and women did with time on their hands

According to a Tacoma Daily News article dated Nov. 8, 1890, Tacoma was known all over the east coast for having the largest number of single men in any city of comparable size in the country.  There may have been reasons why women avoided Tacoma, starting with hats. At that time ladies’ hats were in
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