Tacoma and “destiny.” by [WASHINGTON STATE -- LAND DEVELOPMENT]. ANDREWS, C.[harles] - 1891.

Tacoma, WA: Puget Sound Printing Co., 1891. 8vo. 46, [2] pp. Woodcut-engraved plate, woodcut-engraved lozenge tail-piece. Recent blue-green buckram, gilt lettering on spine (small shelf number stamp at foot of title), otherwise a VG copy. First edition of this scarce land promotion work promoting the progress of Tacoma as one of the great railroad boom towns at the end of the 19th century. The plate at the opening of the book illustrates the massive Tacoma Western Washington Industrial Exposition building which when finished in early 1891 was the largest frame building on the West Coast, covering two blocks, and using nearly a half million board feet of lumber to build. Within two years, the bust and recession of 1893 would sweep away the booster spirit in the Pacific Northwest, and the city of Tacoma would join the rest of the region in a deep economic downturn which would last nearly to the end of the century. See: Reps, The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States, pp. 406-412.