Tacoma Hotel and Totem Pole in Tacoma, c. 1907
Geographic description
The Tacoma Hotel and Totem Pole are the two dominant landmarks featured on this vintage postcard of Tacoma, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The printed caption, “TACOMA HOTEL AND TOTEM POLE, TACOMA, WASH.,” identifies the location clearly. The hotel stood at 913 A Street, between South 9th and South 10th streets in downtown Tacoma, on elevated ground overlooking Commencement Bay. Its commanding position was an important part of its appeal, offering guests extensive views across the bay, the developing waterfront and, in favorable conditions, Mount Rainier.
The postcard emphasizes the impressive scale and picturesque architecture of the hotel. The building fills almost the entire width of the scene and is composed of numerous projecting sections, steep gables, tall brick chimneys, towers and changing rooflines. Decorative timbering contrasts with large areas of masonry and light-colored wall surfaces, while rows of rectangular windows occupy the upper floors. At ground level, several arched openings add another architectural rhythm. A rounded projecting tower with a conical roof is especially prominent on the left side of the main façade. These features are consistent with the modified Tudor character associated with the building. Tacoma Public Library records describe the hotel as a five-story structure about 300 feet long, constructed of red brick and stucco with light stone trim.
Standing prominently in the foreground is the tall carved pole identified by the postcard as the Totem Pole. Its position beside the hotel gives the composition a strong vertical element that visually competes with the hotel’s chimneys and towers. Historical photographs preserved by the Tacoma Public Library locate the pole near the south side of the original hotel, at the foot of South 10th Street. The painted figures stacked along its height made it an instantly recognizable landmark, and the postcard’s color treatment further emphasizes the reds, dark outlines and pale details against the light-colored hotel and blue sky.
The surroundings appear remarkably quiet. There is little visible street traffic and no large crowd in front of the building. Lawn and modest landscaping separate the hotel from the viewer. The composition therefore appears intended primarily as a picturesque promotional image of two Tacoma landmarks rather than as a documentary record of everyday street life. Its soft artificial colors are typical of early twentieth-century postcards produced from black-and-white photographic originals and subsequently printed or tinted in color.
The modern setting is very different from the scene shown here. The original Tacoma Hotel no longer survives: it was destroyed by fire in 1935 and was never rebuilt in its original form. The carved pole also eventually left its position beside the hotel. After later relocations it stood in Fireman’s Park, before being removed by the City of Tacoma in 2021. The postcard therefore records a combination of two major local landmarks that has completely disappeared from Tacoma’s present-day streetscape.
Historical description
The Tacoma Hotel was one of the most ambitious architectural projects associated with Tacoma’s dramatic growth during the late nineteenth century. Designed by the prominent New York architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, with Stanford White associated with the design, the hotel officially opened on August 8, 1884. Its location overlooking the waterfront and Northern Pacific Railroad facilities reflected Tacoma’s aspirations to become a major commercial and transportation center on the Pacific Coast.
The hotel was unusually large and luxurious for the young city. Historical records describe a five-story structure extending for roughly 300 feet and occupying almost a full city block. Additions and renovations followed as Tacoma expanded. Over the decades the hotel became one of the city’s best-known buildings and hosted prominent political figures, performers, business travelers and tourists. Its architecture and elevated setting made it particularly suitable for postcards intended to advertise Tacoma as a prosperous and sophisticated western city.
The history of the carved pole shown in front of the hotel is more complicated. It was commissioned in 1903 by Tacoma businessmen William Sheard and Chester Thorne. Earlier local accounts stated that it had been carved by two Alaska Native artists and described its imagery as being in a Haida style. This version of its origin was repeated for many years and can still be found in older archival descriptions.
More recent research undertaken by the City of Tacoma has challenged that traditional account. During a formal review in 2020-2021 involving Indigenous representatives, including Puyallup, Tlingit and Haida voices, the identity of the original carvers could not be established, and the claim that the pole had been produced by Native artists was seriously questioned. City documents concluded that the monument was closely connected with early twentieth-century civic boosterism and commercial rivalry, particularly Tacoma’s competition with Seattle and its desire to promote itself as a gateway for trade with Alaska.
This later reassessment changes the way the object is understood today. When this postcard was produced, the “Totem Pole” was promoted straightforwardly as one of Tacoma’s tourist attractions. In the twenty-first century, however, its representation of Indigenous artistic traditions and the uncertainty surrounding its creators became central issues. Tacoma eventually removed it from the municipal art collection and historic register, and the pole itself was taken down on August 3, 2021.
The precise date of this particular postcard cannot be established from the front alone. It must have been produced after the pole was erected in 1903 and before the hotel was destroyed in 1935. Its printing style, hand-colored appearance and overall composition strongly suggest the early twentieth century. More significantly, Tacoma Public Library holds a postcard depicting the “Hotel Tacoma, and Totem Pole, Tacoma, Washington” that it dates to circa 1907. That closely related archival record makes a date of approximately 1907-1910 reasonable for this card, although the two cards cannot be proven to be the same edition from the available evidence.
On October 17, 1935, a fire spread rapidly through the Tacoma Hotel. The guests were evacuated, but the original building was destroyed and never rebuilt. This postcard therefore preserves an especially evocative view of two once-famous Tacoma landmarks standing side by side during the city’s early twentieth-century development.
