Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
MAYOR-001A
Date(s)
- 1880 (Creation)
Extent
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
ca. 1880. Portrait of General John W. Sprague, elected December 10, 1883, as first mayor of the consolidated city of Tacoma. According to Herbert Hunt's Tacoma: Its History and Its Builders, Vol. 1, General Sprague had been petitioned by a large number of citizens to run for the mayor's office. He had stated that he did not desire election but would not refuse should he be selected. John W. Sprague was 66 in 1883 and had retired from the Northern Pacific Railroad that January. He had arrived in Tacoma in 1870 as general superintendent of the railroad and soon rose in prominence. Hunt described him as a "delightful man, a good speaker, fair and true." TPL-576 ALBUM 16. (Hunt: Its History and Its Builders, Vol. 1, p. 295-96) Also G2.1-023
Sprague, John W.; Mayors--Tacoma--1880-1890;