Frank Ross Saw Tacoma's
Destiny in World Commerce
 Frank
C. Ross was 21 years old and broke when he arrived in Tacoma (Pop.
700, but growing) on December 23, 1879. He worked a few days as a
waiter for his board at Halstead House, a few weeks shoveling
gravel into the mud holes on unpaved Pacific Avenue, a few months
at the Hatch and Forbes sawmill and then in the Northern Pacific
railway shops.
When his brother Charles arrived from Pittsfield, Ill., they
teamed up to make a quick $321 selling cigars, confectionary,
California fruit and imported newspapers at a fair in Chehalis.
With the proceeds he bought the southeast corner of 11th and
Pacific, where Peoples Store was later built, and opened a real
estate office.
In
an autobiographical sketch he wrote for Herbert Hunt's "History
of Tacoma," Ross tells of sawing logs on South Ninth from St.
Helens Avenue to E Street (now Fawcett) so as to be able to run a
wheelbarrow up the hill to lots 3, 4 and 5 in block 9, which he
purchased for $225 and sold weeks later for $1,000.
From
then on his passions were real estate development and
transportation that would speed up development. He helped organize
and finance the Tacoma & Lake City Railroad that built a line
from Union Avenue to Lake City on the north side of American Lake.
The right-of-way later passed into the hands of the Union Pacific.
He was later involved in the ill-fated attempt to run rails along
the eastern shore of the Olympic Peninsula to Port Townsend, a
plan that got nowhere.
The
tideflats fascinated him. He bought acreage wherever it became
available, platted it and named Lincoln Avenue and many of the
streets on the land east of the river. When the law regarding
Indian reservation land was changed to permit individual Indians
to sell or lease their share of reservation property, he
contracted to buy some 1,500 acres of marshland, a sale never
consummated because of government objections.
In
1892 Ross, together with Peter Stanup, one of the leaders of the
Puyallups, organized a coalition of Indian owners whose land
stretched across Browns Point. They started to lay track for
rails, the plan being to establish a connection with the Great
Northern which was approaching Seattle from the north.
The
Indian agent on the Puyallup reservation called up federal troops
from Fort Vancouver to block construction. Ross went to federal
court in Seattle and secured an injunction forbidding the United
States from invading the Puyallup Nation. But the Circuit Court in
San Francisco lifted the injunction. Ross lost that battle but
henceforth styled himself "Colonel" Ross in honor of his
part in the Indian War of Browns Point.
In
1913 Ross again made front page headlines. At a banquet in Moose
Hall, he addressed a group of 156 Japanese immigrants who had
booked round-trip passage on the Chicago Maru for a four-month
visit to their homeland. He presented the delegation with 200
boxes of cigars, which he said cost him $500. Each box had on its
lid pictures of Mount Rainier and the Olympics. He asked that at
least one box be given to every member of the Japanese parliament
"so that every time they open the box to take a smoke,
they'll look at the wonders of Tacoma."
He
felt that Japan and Tacoma were inexorably linked, which was
greatly to Tacoma's benefit since Japan was destined to control
the commerce of the sea.
"All nations
overestimate the business to be generated by the completion of
the Panama Canal. Too many steamers are being constructed. Your
nation will be able to step in and buy them at half the cost of
construction, and with those you already have you will very
nearly control world commerce."
Ross
urged that:
the United States and
Japanese governments join to establish schools and employ
teachers to educate your very young girls with our very young
boys. By this method the children would become attached to each
other and the sequel would be early marriage.
If it is impossible for our
governments to unite in this great cause, then it might be that
our states could bring this problem to a wonderful termination.
I am very anxious to see a school of this kind established. I
have a beautiful location and would gladly give the site for
that purpose. I would not only donate the site but I would give
money towards building the school and employing teachers. Then I
would give money for building a home for the children. There
would be no trouble in getting orphans to attend in case the
parents of other children objected to sending their little ones
here.
Ross'
speech received a standing three banzais from the audience. It was
not widely praised when published. Indeed there was indignation.
The
ladies of the Aloha Club passed a resolution protesting the
proposal for government-sponsored miscegenation.
Ross,
who always boasted that he belonged to no church, no lodge or
secret society, no political party, was amused by the uproar. "They
would have ridden me out of town on a rail," he observed, "but
they couldn't find a rail rough enough for their purpose."
He
remained in Tacoma until his death on Jan. 10, 1947, still
independent as a hog on ice, still prophesying the city's future
in world commerce. |
