In November of 1883, the territorial legislature passed a law that resulted in the merging of Tacoma City (Old Tacoma) and New Tacoma. The law stated: "That on and after the first Monday of January, 1884, the city of Tacoma, incorporated on November 12, 1875, and New Tacoma, incorporated on November 5, 1881, shall be consolidated under one city government, to be known as Tacoma."

The law also stipulated that an election was to take place in December 1883 to elect a "mayor, city marshal, and three councilmen for each ward." The city was divided into three wards leading to the election of a ten member council. The merger of the two cities occurred on January 7, 1884 with John Wilson Sprague serving as Mayor. Sprague and the nine council members were to serve for an interim term until another election could be held in May 1884.

In 1910, a commission style government was put in place with elected officials managing utilities, public works, and public safety. In 1952, Tacoma voters approved the Mayor/City Manager System that remains in place today. Under this model, the elected Mayor and City Council determine policy that is implemented by the City Manager. The Council is made up of eight Council Members, representing five districts and three at-large positions, and the Mayor. They are responsible for "enacting and amending City laws, adopting the Biennial Budget, appointing citizen board, committees, and commissions, and providing guidance and direction for actions which affect the quality of life in the City."

Stephen Cysewski was an American photographer known for his self-described "wandering" style of street photography. Born in Berkeley, California he primarily grew up in the Tacoma area and graduated from Western Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy in 1967. After college, he moved to Alaska as a VISTA volunteer where he lived for a year in the village of Shaktoolik. There he worked many jobs including as a high school counselor for Indian Education at West Anchorage High School. He earned his master’s of Liberal Arts degree from Alaska Pacific University and then was employed as an assistant professor in Information Technology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks from 1991-2009. He retired as a professor in 2007 and was granted emeritus status. Throughout his life, he traveled the world to such places as Korea, Thailand, Europe, Alaska, and Washington State to take photographs. In 1979 Cysewski traveled to Tacoma where he took hundreds of photographs of the downtown and residential areas in the city. Cysewski passed away at home in Alaska on July 20th, 2020 after battling pancreatic cancer.

Marjorie Jane Windus was born in 1920 to Louise and Harold Windus. Harold was a movie theatre organist in Seattle during the silent film era. Marjorie attended the University of Washington and after graduating moved to Chicago Illinois where she worked as a hostess/cashier at the Blue Note Jazz Club while pursuing a singing carrier. She returned to Washington where she received her master's degree in social work from the University of Washington. After graduating she became a social worker for the Pierce County Community Worker Unit. She developed the first community-wide resource directory in Pierce County. She also played a role in helping the Puyallup Tribe get possession of the building which would later become their community center (the former Cascadia Juvenile Diagnostic Center). She retired from the Department of Social and Health Services in 1983 and moved to San Francisco until early 2009 when she returned to Tacoma. Until her passing, she attended the Monterey Jazz Festival. She died in Tacoma after a brief illness.

Adam Byrd was born in Ohio in 1796. He and his wife had nine children. They relocated to Illinois first and then moved again to Richland County, Wisconsin where Adam operated a grist mill. In April 1852, the family acquired a team of oxen and embarked on a six month journey on the Oregon Trail. The family arrived in Vancouver, Oregon Territory. Adam continued on with Lieutenant A. Slaughter further north and selected a site at the head of Chamber Creek for a mill. Adam returned to move his family to the site in February of 1853. They stopped at Judge Thomas Chambers' mill on the way where Adam Byrd died on April 26, 1853. Adam's sons Andrew, Marion, and Preston constructed a grist mill and saw mill on the site their father had selected. George Byrd, the youngest son of Adam Byrd, attended the first school session held in Pierce County in 1854. In 1865 George married Mary Ellen White of Olympia who had crossed the Oregon Trail in 1851. George operated the mill until 1868. He later devoted the surrounding land to raising hops. In 1885, he represented Pierce County in the state legislature and served as Justice of the Peace in 1890. George and Mary Ellen had nine children. George was active in the Fern Hill area. He donated the land and financed the construction of the Methodist Episcopal Church and parsonage in Fern Hill and help establish school district number 23. He donated several lots and gave other incentives to encourage the street car to run through Fern Hill. He died June 17, 1915.

Astoria Iron Works was a canning machinery company started in 1881 in Astoria, Oregon by John Fox. In 1906, he was joined in the venture by Nelson Troyer, formerly associated with the American Can Company at Astoria and Portland, Oregon. In 1913 the company opened a large factory in Seattle and became the Seattle-Astoria Iron Works. In 1928 the name changed to the Troyer-Fox Manufacturing Company and the company was bought by the Continental Can Company, Inc. In 1932, Troyer-Fox Manufacturing Company and the Continental Can Company, Inc. of Washington were both dissolved and their assets taken over by the Continental Can Company, Inc. of New York.

Tacoma-Pierce County Opportunity and Development, Inc. was formed "to employ the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, Public Law 88-452, 88th Congress, as a means of providing stimulation and incentive for the mobilizing of the resources of the Tacoma-Pierce County community to combat poverty."

Lewis Law, born to Viva Berg and Lewis Law Sr., was a graduate of Stadium High School and served as a US Army reservist. As a lifelong Tacoman Lewis' career at Tacoma City Public Works Department spanned 42 years. There he worked as a sidewalk inspector, principal engineer aid, and in the city's traffic signs department. An accomplished photographer, he was a division chairman and later vice president of the Tacoma Photographic Society. In these roles, he presented on photographic composition and shooting color film, among other photographic techniques. Lewis was also an avid traveler who photographed many of his trips throughout his life. He retired from the city in 1995 and passed away on January 23rd, 1998.

Soon after it selected Tacoma as the terminus for its western line in 1873, the Northern Pacific Railroad formed a subsidiary, the Tacoma Land Company, to develop the city and sell the town lots. It was first incorporated as the Southern Improvement Company and immediately renamed the Tacoma Land Company. The first president of the company was Charles Barstow Wright, an officer in the Northern Pacific Railroad who had been a member of the committee that selected Tacoma as the western terminus location. Fellow Northern Pacific officer Frederick Billings was vice-president, and John C. Ainsworth, owner of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, was third director. Wright, Billings, and Ainsworth invested personally in Tacoma and were involved with the early development of the city. Tacoma Land Company was reorganized in 1899 and renamed the Tacoma Land & Improvement Co. The Tacoma Land & Improvement Co. was dissolved in 1923. These records are from the estate of former Tacoma Land Company vice-president Frederick Billings, who also served as president of the Northern Pacific Railroad from 1879 to 1881.

The Tacoma News Tribune’s history dates to 1883 and was the consolidation of three Tacoma newspapers, The Tacoma Daily Tribune, The Tacoma News, and The Daily Tacoma Ledger.

In 1881, the Weekly Ledger was started by F. Radebaugh and H.C. Patrick, under the firm name Radebaugh & Company. Previously, Radebaugh had served on the reportorial staff of the San Franscico Chronical. He had first visited Tacoma in June 1879. Radebaugh became familiar with Patrick, who owned and operated a weekly newspaper in Santa Cruz. The two came to an agreement to move the business to Tacoma with Radebaugh as the paper’s editor and Patrick as the business manager. The paper quickly became a success and Radebaugh bought out Patrick’s share. Until 1837, The Ledger served as a morning paper. Its name remained on the nameplate of The News Tribune and Sunday Ledger until 1979.

H.C. Patrick purchased the Pierce County News from George W. Mattice and changed the paper’s name to the Tacoma Weekly News. The News was then converted into a daily on September 25, 1883; however, he later sold The Daily News in 1885. R. F. Radebaugh started The Tacoma Daily Tribune in 1908 and sold the publication in 1912 to Frank S. Baker. Baker would go on to purchase the News and Ledger in 1918. Baker was the president of the Tribune Publishing Company and was a highly regarded newspaper man of the western United States. The News and Tribune were combined into an afternoon daily and the first issue was printed on June 17, 1918.

In 1937, The Daily Tacoma Ledger stopped publication. The News Tribune is merged with the Ledger to form The News Tribune and Sunday Ledger. Then in 1979 The Tacoma News Tribune became the official name of both daily and Sunday newspapers. During 1986, Tribune Publishing Company sold the majority of its holdings to Viacom, Inc., and McClatchy Newspapers. That year, the Tacoma News Tribune became a subsidiary of McClatchy Newspapers. McClatchy Newspapers is the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, and it originally started as Sacramento newspaper in 1857. The Tacoma News Tribune became The Morning News Tribune on April 6, 1987, until October 4, 1993, when name changes to The News Tribune.

Arthur J. Miller was a lifelong labor and civil rights advocate, born in San Diego but primarily active in the Puget Sound region after 1989. In 1967, he became involved in the anti-war movement and was allied with the Black Panther Party in the late ’60s. He made a career as a pipefitter in shipyards across the United States, joining the Industrial Workers of the World in 1970 at the suggestion of an I.W.W. member. His contributions in distributing radical leftist literature for the Panthers, and later his own publication Bayou La Rose, made him the target of disruption efforts of local and federal authorities. Arthur Miller passed in 2021.

Cecil C. Cavanaugh (1902 - 1980) was a life-long resident of Tacoma. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 1920. He served as President of Tacoma’s Young Men’s Business Association, the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce and the Tacoma Broadcasting Company, which worked to bring the radio station KTBI to the city. He was on the Board of Directors of the Lumberman’s Club and of the Camp Six Logging Museum at Point Defiance. He had an interest in promoting traffic safety and was active in St Patrick’s Catholic Church. Cavanaugh was an amateur historian of lumber operations in Tacoma. As part of this hobby, he built a collection of 600 historic photographs depicting logging, lumber milling and lumber shipping operations in Tacoma and Pierce County which he donated to the Washington State Historical Society.

Cavanaugh was founder and President of the Cavanaugh Lumber Company, which operated in Tacoma from 1930 to 1982. In its first 10 years his lumber company was destroyed by fire twice and severely damaged by Puyallup River flooding. Each time, Cavanaugh rebuilt. Tacoma’s growth and development necessitated two relocations of his business.

Cavanaugh’s relatives were active in the 10th (Steilacoom) Chapter of the Daughters of the Pioneers. Cavanaugh and his wife Mary Geiger Cavanaugh had two daughters, Cathleen Jarman and Mary Frances and two sons James and Lawrence.

The Tacoma Actors Guild was founded in 1978 by college professors Bill Becvar and Rick Tutor as a professional theater company. Their first production was "Guys and Dolls." Over their years of operation, the Guild produced musicals, plays, and educational programs. The executive committee made the decision to suspend Tacoma Actors Guild operations in December 2004 due to ongoing financial troubles. The organization had been experiencing losses in the previous few years before the shutdown was announced, and additionally they owed a considerable amount to creditors. However, the Bellevue Civic Theater decided to stage and produce shows for two and a half years in hopes to give TAG time to regroup and continue their work. While that, alongside the leadership of a new executive director provided some improvements, the financial situation failed to change enough, causing the Actors Guild to officially shut its doors in March 2007, following the final production of “Proof.” TAG’s playwright at the time commented, “It's not an easy decision to pull the plug, but the professional midsize theater model is hard to maintain these days."

Theo Kissick and his wife Delilah were active members of the Hix n’ Chix square dance club of Tacoma, Washington. The Hix n’ Chix were affiliated with the Rainier Council of the Square and Folk Dance Federation of Washington. Theo and Delilah were part of the organizing committee of the 30th Annual National Square Dance Convention held in Seattle June 25-27, 1981. More than 20,000 dancers from across the US and from Australia, England, New Zealand, Sweden, Holland and Japan registered for the event.

Erna Spannagel Tilley (1887-1982) was a supporter of the arts in Tacoma. She was born in South Dakota to a German immigrant father and Wisconsin-born mother. She and her four siblings moved with their parents to Spokane, Washington where she attended high school. After graduating from the University of Washington, she married Homer H Tilley (1884-1953) in 1911. He was employed by Metropolitan Insurance Company and transferred to Tacoma by 1917.

Their social circle included artists, writers, poets, and dramatists throughout Puget Sound. In later life, Erna Tilley profiled several of these artists in her books, ”A Gateway to Friendship” (1970) and “Remembrances of Five Notables” (1971). She helped organize the Tacoma branch of the Drama League of America in 1918, and was involved throughout its existence and transformation into the Tacoma Little Theatre. An active board member for 28 years, she chronicled it in “The History of the Tacoma Little Theatre” (1965).

In 1929 she was named Tacoma’s official hostess, authorized by the city council to run the Welcome Wagon, a job she held for at least ten years. She helped orient new residents to city resources and distributed sample goods from local businesses. In 1935, she served on the first board of the Tacoma Art Association which developed into the Tacoma Art Museum. She documented its beginnings in “Resume: Early History of Tacoma Art Association”. Later she was also a founding member of Allied Arts of Tacoma, receiving its Allied Arts Civic Award in 1969.

She worked as a real estate salesperson and was concerned about the course of Tacoma’s urban development. She was a board member of the Tacoma Municipal League and received their Distinguished Citizen Award in 1977. She died July 6, 1982 at the age of 94.

The Tilleys had two daughters; the first, Julia, was born in 1913. She lived with her parents until sometime after 1960 when she was institutionalized. She died in a nursing home in 1980.

Margaret Tilley was their second child, born in 1916. A 1933 graduate of Stadium High School, she attended the College of Puget Sound for two years, then transferred and graduated from the University of Washington in 1937. Her weekly letters to her mother began when she was employed at the Custodial School in Medical Lake, Washington for a year. She returned to Tacoma and served as an editor of the Tacoma News Tribune’s society page for two years. In 1941 she moved to San Francisco and resumed writing letters. By 1944 her job with the American Red Cross entailed service on troop transport trains, assisting wounded servicemen from the Pacific theater on their return to points east. She was attached to Army groups in China and Japan in WWII. She was on General Douglas MacArthur’s staff of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group to the Republic of China when it was evacuated to Japan in 1949. She joined the Foreign Service in 1950 and served in Vienna, Damascus, London, Montevideo, Pretoria, Milan, and Bangkok. She maintained a correspondence with her mother during her years abroad. She retired in November 1972 and died in Tacoma on January 3, 1974, age 57.

George Miclea Miller was born in Palos, Romania on October 5, 1889. He immigrated to the United States and lived in Ohio before relocating to Tacoma in 1923. He worked as a longshoreman and checker for 32 years. He served eight years as President of the Local 38-97 International Longshoreman's Association (ILA), five years as the President of the Washington State Maritime Trades Group, and five years as President of the ILA District Council. Miller represented the longshoreman during the Streamline Strike of 1936 and helped lead a demand for higher wages for Pacific Coast longshore workers in 1940. He died in November 1964 at the age of 75.

The Women’s Intergenerational Living Legacy Organization (WILLO) was founded by Seong Shin in 2013 to share storytelling between generations of women spanning all ages, races, sexual orientations, and cultures. Programs put on by WILLO are often interactive to encourage communication between these identities, as well as being free to all members of the public. The WILLO Founding Members included Sandy Allen, Julie Amman, Todd Anderson, Marian Anderson, Elia Armstrong, Lea Armstrong, Mira Armstrong, Diane Bai, Shaunna Baldyga, Debbie Bronson, Jamie Brooks, Ronnie Bush, Rosmarie Burke, Elizabeth Burris, Carly Bush, Libby Catalinich, Cathy Cha, Nicole Cha, Kevin Cha, Judy Colarusso, Seong Shin, Angela Connelly, Denise Davis, Kathleen Deakins, Teri DeGroote, Maria Devore, Melanie Dressell, Liz Dunbar, T'wina Franklin, Marguerite Gerontis, Jill Goodman, Anna Grover-Barnes, Tina Hagedorn, Chong Hilger, Lisa Isenman, Rick Jones, Anne Kin, Hyang Lee Kim, Janet Kim, Sunni Ko, Babe Lehrer, Denise Kopetzky, Georgia Langrell, Jacquelyn Langrell, Vicki Langrell, Karen Larkin, Chelsea Lindquist, Dawn Lucien, Alexis MacDonald, Robin MacNofsky, Laura McCallum, Barbie Pratt, Laura Michalek, Stephanie Miller, Natalie Minear, Cindy Niemi, Rickie Olson, Julie Peterson, Kathryn Philbrook, Kathleen Deakins, Pamela Transue, Anna Price, Judy Calarusso, Carlyn Roy, Carla Sontorno, Mihwa Schmitscheck, Lea Worth, Ana Maria Sierra, Mary Thomas, Gail Thomason, Amenda Westbrooke, Victoria Woodards, and Sarah Worth. The WILLO Steering Committee formed in in 2014. Steering Committee members included Angela Connelly, Ana Maria Sierra, Babe Lehrer, Barbie Pratt, Dawn Lucien, Diane Bai, Elizabeth Sanders, Lea Armstrong, Melissa Sue Barkley, Robin Macnofsky, Ronnie Bush, Sunni Ko, Tina Hagedorn, and T'wina Nobles. The first WILLO Annual Storytelling Festival was held at the Theatre In the Square on October 12, 2014. The festival featured speakers Lea Armstrong, Eva & Allie Brooks, Rosa Franklin, Melissa Jorgensen, Griselda “Babe” Lehrer, Dawn Lucien, Maxine Mimms, Cindy Niemi, and Seong Shin herself. Six annual Storytelling Festivals have been held by WILLO through 2019. In addition to the WILLO Storytelling Festivals, the organization has also hosted the Health and Happiness Conversations event and the Father-Daughter Brunch.

The Griffin Fuel Company originated in 1889 as the Griffin Transfer Company. Founder Fred L. Griffin started the company in the Tacoma tide flats, originally transporting ice within established Tacoma fuel yards. The company eventually became a supplier of heating and fuel products to a large portion of the Tacoma population. Griffin Fuel transported coal, wood, sawdust, “fuel oil,” “hog fuel,” and “Presto logs” within Tacoma and the surrounding area. In 1949, Griffin Fuel Company was considered the “oldest and largest exclusive fuel dealer in the west." (1)

In 1931, Fred L. Griffin passed away and was succeeded as owner by his son, Edwin “Ed” L. Griffin. By 1942, Ed and his brother Fred expanded the business by opening a wholesale location by the name of “Griffin Bros” in Seattle. Griffin Fuel Company also opened oil storage facilities in Tacoma’s Lake district in 1951.(2)

In 1954 President of the corporation James S. Griffin changed the corporate name to James S. Griffin Co., and the company name also changed to Griffin-Galbriath Fuel Company. On Sept. 8th, 1965 the James S. Fuel Company liquidated all corporate assets and sold all property and naming rights to the Standard Oil Company of California, Western Operations, Inc. The Washington State Department ratified the official dissolution of Griffin-Galbriath Fuel Company on Dec. 5th, 1966.(3)

The Hilltop Library Planning Committee (HLPC) was originally created in 2012 in response to the closure of the Tacoma Public Library’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Branch which was built starting on January 19, 1987 and existed at 1902 South Cedar Street. Original members of the committee include: Bil Moss, Al Nurse, Billie Johnstone and Ellen Smith. The current president/chair of the committee is Linda Oliver. The committee continues to meet regularly to share information, engage the community in the project, have discussions with city leaders and advocate for the return of a local library for the Hilltop neighborhood.

In 1993, the Pierce County Council established the Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed Council. The Council produced the Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed Action Plan and brought together stakeholders from the private sector, and federal, state, and local governments. The Council hosts monthly public meetings and undertakes work to improve fish habitat and water quality.

The Chambers-Clover Creek Watershed extends from the town of Ruston on Commencement Bay south to DuPont, and east to Frederickson, covering about 149 square miles. Major lakes include American, Spanaway, Steilacoom, Gravelly, and Tule. Major streams are Chambers, Clover, Spanaway, Morey, Murray, Flett, Leach, Puget and Peach. Seven municipalities, three military installations, and one drainage district, as well as Pierce County, have jurisdiction concerning water quality. The cities are: Tacoma, Lakewood, Fircrest, University Place, Steilacoom, DuPont, and Ruston. In 2018, the watershed's population was approximately 409,843 or 2,751 people per square mile.

The Tacoma Railway and Power Company operated the Tacoma Railway and Company Streetcar. It was the first transit system in Tacoma, and on May 30, 1888, it started service as a passenger trolley line.(1) Tacoma's first two streetcar lines were established along Pacific Avenue and Tacoma Avenue.(1) On July 4, 1900, Trolley car No. 116, owned by the Tacoma Railway and Power Company, lost traction on the Delin Street grade and jumped the tracks on the "C" Street trestle. The streetcar crashed 100 feet into a ravine, killing 43 people and injuring 65.(2) The Tacoma Railway and Power Company were later found liable for the accident, which resulted in lawsuits almost bankrupting the company. To prevent bankruptcy Tacoma Railway and Power put over $100,000 into a trust fund and "informed the lawyers either to accept the money and distribute it among the claimants, or the railway would go into receivership." (2) The settlement was accepted.(2) The final day the streetcars ran on June 11, 1938, was celebrated as a city holiday. In 1938, Tacoma replaced the 76-mile streetcar system with buses. (1)

Ronald Magden was born in Mountain Home, Idaho, in 1926. (1) He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Washington in 1965 while teaching at Renton Junior-Senior High School. (2) After receiving his Ph.D., Magden started teaching at Tacoma Community College until his retirement in 1983. (2) Magden helped to edit ILWU Local 23’s grant proposal to the Washington Commission for the Humanities in 1977. However, after the hired writers struggled to write Local 23’s history, Magden was asked to take on the project in 1979. This was the beginning of a thirty-year study in Longshore history and the Pacific Coast. (1) He was known as a local historian, researcher, and educator. Magden’s first book, The Working Waterfront, was published in 1982. (2) He wrote eight more books: Pioneer School, Furusato (Going Home), History of Seattle Waterfront Workers, The Working Longshore Men, and Mukashi Mukashi (Long Long Ago). (2) Magden married Joan Lorraine Mulroney on August 9th, 1949, and they had three children together. Magden passed away on December 31st, 2018. (2)