Let the Celebration Begin!

1891

New Hotel Built

The building was originally intended by its financiers, the Northern Pacific Railroad Company and Tacoma Land Company, to be one of the finest luxury hotels on the Pacific Coast.

In 1890 they purchased a nine-acre tract of land on a high bluff overlooking Commencement Bay, and solicited architectural designs and bids for the building.

The winning architects, Hewitt and Hewitt of Philadelphia, submitted with their bid a painting of their planned edifice in French Renaissance architectural style. (That painting hangs today in Stadium's main office.)

Some sources have claimed that the building is modeled after an actual chateau near Tours (southwest of Paris) or Chaumont (southeast of Paris), but neither claim has been verified.

Construction of the hotel--known both as the Olympic and the Tourist--began in 1891, but came to a screeching halt in 1893 in the wake of a nationwide financial panic and depression.

(See Tacoma 1891 )

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