Tacoma, ta-ko'ma, a seaport of Washington, the seat of Pierce County. It is situated on an arm of Puget Sound, at the mouth of the Puyallup River. It is twenty-eight miles south of Seattle. The general site of the city is an incline. The chief residence portion is a plateau about 200 feet above the harbor. The name is Indian. It was borrowed from Mount Tacoma, known in military circles as Mt. Ranier, which rises in full view to the east. The city was laid out in 1868. The Northern Pacific Railway reached the port in 1873. The city is growing so rapidly that a description in detail would soon be out of date. There are electric street railways, a system of public waterworks, electric lights, parks, school buildings, an efficient sewerage system, large banking buildings, clubs, theaters, and hotels. There are several denominational colleges at Tacoma. The public schools are organized thoroughly. There were seventy-one churches in 1900. The city has grown with astonishing rapidity. The population in 1900 was returned at 37,714. In 1905 local statisticians claimed 80,000. In 1909 the population was 105,000. The leading interests are manufacturing and commerce. There are large sawmills, planing mills, and box factories, breweries, car shops, shipyards, smelters, match factories, brickyards, packing houses, rolling mills, flour mills and iron foundries. They pay rolls for 1908 carried 11,800 wage earners and footed $8,760,000. Tacoma claims the largest sawmill in the world. Immense quantities of lumber, wheat, flour, and coal are loaded at the wharves for points on the Pacific coast and for the Orient. Wheat for England is shipped via Singapore and the Suez Canal. Shipments for 1908 included 11,500,000 bushels of wheat and 800,000 bushels of flour. The total exports for 1908 were over $20,000,000. Mean annual temperature, 51.4 deg. F.; mean annual rain fall, 45.4 inches; death rate, 8 per 1,000. See WASHINGTON; PORTLAND; SEATTLE.