Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
BOLAND-B4399
Date(s)
- 1890 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
ca. 1890. This portrait, taken around 1890, is of the Foss boathouse, the first boathouse in Tacoma. The 16 x 30 structure was built by Andrew Foss to house his growing family. His industrious wife, Thea, began the family business here. The Foss family had arrived from Norway in 1889. While Andrew took what work he could find, Thea used the family fortune, $5, to buy a used rowboat and Foss Tug and Launch Co. was begun. At this time in 1890, the boathouse was located on the City Waterway (where Consumers Central Heating Co. and the City's Steam Plant would build in the 1920s.) The photograph was taken about three months before the birth of Henry Foss. Standing at the top of the landing are Andrew and Thea Foss and their daughter Lillian D. Foss. John Edmond is in the first boat on the water. In the second boat are Wedell Foss and Arthur Foss, only small children but already helping their parents out. The remaining folks are customers who rented the boats for five to ten cents a day. There was no Eleventh Street bridge at this time and in the back of the boathouse on the hill can be seen the old city jail at 12th and A St. (TNT 3/25/1922, pg. 14) G14.1-001; TPL-960
Foss Launch & Tug Co. (Tacoma); Foss, Andrew; Foss, Thea; Foss, Andrew--Family; Rowboats; Boathouses--Tacoma--1890-1900;