Tacoma's Salmon Beach

Book excerpt: Perched on the shores of the Tacoma Narrows, the community of Salmon Beach overlooks the spectacular Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Built as a series of fishing shacks on the beach, Salmon Beach took on a more permanent flavor after Henry O. Foss towed his two-story boathouse from the city to the tidelands south of Point Defiance. After electricity was introduced in 1934, more comfortable cottages were built in this fishing community. From summer beach camping to an isolated refuge in the middle of a city, a haven for rumrunners during Prohibition to the counterculture enclave of the 1960s, the community of Salmon Beach has weathered fires, evictions, landslides, and government caprice to become the unique neighborhood of Tacoma it is today.