Qualla: Tacoma

Tacoma: Introduction

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Broran28, Public domain. Mount Rainier doesn't just appear on Tacoma's horizon - it dominates it. The mountain rises 14,410 feet, seemingly close enough to touch from the city's hillsides, its glaciers catching alpenglow while the port below still sits in shadow. The Puyallup people called both mountain and city 'Tahoma' - the source of nourishment - and their descendants still live in these lands, their name memorialized in the city that grew around Commencement Bay. Tacoma was once Washington's most important city, the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad, a rough-and-tumble port that earned notoriety for its industrial grit. Now it's reinventing itself as an arts destination, anchored by glass artist Dale Chihuly's spectacular work and a revitalized downtown that still remembers where it came from.

Read more: Tacoma on Qualla

Image: Broran28 | Public domain

Tacoma: The Mountain Looms

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. No city in America has a more dramatic mountain view than Tacoma. Mount Rainier fills the eastern sky, its mass so immense that it creates its own weather, so close that its glaciers are visible without binoculars. The Puyallup Valley spreads between city and peak, farmland and s...

Read more: Tacoma on Qualla

Image: Joe Mabel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tacoma: Glass City

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Dale Chihuly was born in Tacoma, and he's repaid his hometown with some of his most spectacular work. The Museum of Glass rises on the waterfront, its 90-foot steel cone housing a hot shop where artists work in public, molten glass glowing orange as it's shaped into impossible fo...

Read more: Tacoma on Qualla

Image: Joe Mabel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tacoma: The Port That Built the West

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adbar, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tacoma exists because of its harbor. Commencement Bay offered deep water access that early railroad builders prized, and when the Northern Pacific Railroad chose Tacoma as its western terminus in 1873, the city's future was sealed. Lumber poured through the port. Mills lined the ...

Read more: Tacoma on Qualla

Image: Adbar | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tacoma: Stadium to Hilltop

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tacoma's neighborhoods tell its history. The Stadium District, north of downtown, preserves Victorian mansions from the railroad boom days, its namesake stadium - a castle-like high school built in 1906 - still hosting games beneath its turreted facade. Old Town, Tacoma's origina...

Read more: Tacoma on Qualla

Image: Joe Mabel | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tacoma: Point Defiance

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris connelly, CC BY 2.0. Point Defiance Park occupies a peninsula jutting into Puget Sound, 760 acres of old-growth forest, waterfront trails, and gardens. It's one of the largest urban parks in the country, and from its beaches and bluffs, the views are spectacular: Mount Rainier to the southeast, the N...

Read more: Tacoma on Qualla

Image: Chris connelly | CC BY 2.0