At the turn of the 20th century, Bismarck was a thriving Tacoma suburb centered around sawmills and the railroad. Changing its name to Hillsdale because of World War I, the neighborhood is now a residential area.
Built Atop a Bluff
In 1888, Charles C. Miller settled on a 150 to 200-acre land claim near Tacoma. He and Tacoma investors began logging. A small community, perched atop a bluff above Tacoma Eastern Gulch, formed around the sawmills.
In 1890, the community became Bismarck, named after Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), the “Iron Chancellor” of the German Empire.
The Bismarck Post Office was established April 26, 1890. The next year the Bismarck School was renamed the Sheridan School after Civil War Union General Phillip Sheridan.
Bismarck might have disappeared when the timber ran out if not for the Tacoma Eastern Railroad’s 1891 decision to make it a stop on the way to their terminus in Midland. Building up the bluff’s steep grade proved a challenge, but as historian Russell Holter writes in Rails to Paradise, “early speculators hoped that, with the coming of the railroad, Bismarck would become a town in its own right.”
The company built a small depot and water tower at what is now the intersection of McKinley Avenue and 64th Street. This area became the heart of Bismarck.
Neighborhood Platted in 1901
Bismarck’s first plat was filed by William and Mary Hessman in 1901. Another 184 lots were platted the next year, selling from between $15 and $25 dollars to homebuilders. Additional plats quickly followed.
Growth depended on sawmills and the railroad. Tacoma Eastern put their shops in Bismarck, where workers repaired and built locomotives and train cars. The Foster Brothers sawmill relocated from Midland to Bismarck in 1902. It was replaced by the Bismarck Mill Company the next year. Appropriately, Otto von Bismarck was on their logo.
By 1912, the growing suburb was home to two sawmills, two grocery stores, a meat shop, a real estate office, a brush and broom factory, a laundry soap factory, and a banister and porch column factory.
Visitors stayed at the Tacoma Eastern Hotel, and the Bismarck Methodist Church held services. The Sheridan School was rebuilt as an eight-room brick building in 1908.
The Bismarck Athletic Association held boxing matches and sponsored a baseball team. Games were held at their field at South G and 64th Street, by the railroad track.
Tacoma’s Best Suburb?
Bismarck was a place where working-class families could afford to own their own homes and raise their children in a healthy “open-air” environment. It was a good place to garden, too.
The area, home to 2,000 people, was annexed by Tacoma in 1909. While many residents commuted to work, Bismarck was relatively isolated. Although only three miles from the city center, Tacoma Eastern did not establish passenger service until 1901.
Streetcar riders had to walk a mile or more to the nearest stop. In 1911, after years of lobbying, the Tacoma Railway and Power Company finally extended their McKinley Park line to the intersection of 64th Street and McKinley Avenue.
To celebrate, the Bismarck Improvement Club sponsored a party and fireworks. As the band played “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” and the crowd cheered, the first car pulled up to the new stop. “I am glad the name of this locality is Bismarck,” John W. Linck told the crowd, “for I know this place is named after one of the greatest men the world produced.”
Challenging Times
The Milwaukee Railroad bought out Tacoma Eastern in 1909 and moved its car shops to the Tacoma tidelands. The old shops were turned into the Nisqually Iron Works, which manufactured locomotives and heavy equipment.
On June 10, 1914, a fire began at the Comley Mill. Flames quickly spread to the nearby Bismarck Mill. Employees scrambled to save railroad cars loaded with lumber in the center of the blaze, but their locomotive, carrying 15 men, overturned as the rails warped from the heat. Desperate rescuers braved the inferno to reach them.
“Last night’s fire,” Assistant Fire Chief Otto Schlegel, who’d suffered serious burns, told the News Tribune the next day, “was the worst we’d ever had to fight in Tacoma.” Eighteen were injured and three, all on the locomotive, were killed.
Both sawmills were destroyed, putting hundreds out of work. For years afterwards, sawdust would smolder and smoke at the site every summer. In 1921, a young boy was killed playing in the area.
World War I Changes Name
People in America turned against anything German during World War I, even in Tacoma. And “Bismarck” was undeniably German.
The name held on until 1918, despite complaints. “We people out here,” Mrs. W.H. Johnson wrote the Tacoma Times April 13, 1918, “are tired of seeing [street] cars labeled ‘Bismarck’ run along our streets. We don’t want anything to do with the name except to put it on the scrap heap.” She blamed “a German” for the name.
In response to this and other complaints, the Tacoma Railway and Power Company decided to replace all “Bismarck” signs on their cars with “McKinley Park” as of April 16, 1918. “Bismarck,” the News Tribune declared, was “wiped off the map.”
“East Tacoma” was proposed as a new area name, but “Hillsdale” became the name that stuck.
The Hillsdale neighborhood is largely a residential area today, just as developers had dreamed of over a century ago. Besides Sheridan Elementary School, few traces remain from when it was Bismarck.