dance hall girls

From 1917-1918, dance halls were a hot topic among Tacoma residents.  Tacoma police were on a mission to shut down dance halls and run "dance hall girls" out of the city.  Quite a bit of print space was devoted to the controversy; it appears to begin on October 17, 1917, when two hotel raids resulted in the arrest of three women found in rooms with men.  The women were given jail terms, but proceeded to terrorize the prison wardens and escape.

"Arrested Oct. 17 and given 30-day sentences for vagrancy, they had made day and night hideous at police headquarters by shrieking, singing at the top of their voices, swearing loudly, and destroying everything that was handed into the cell.  Monday morning the girls were removed to an old cell in the upper part of the jail which had formerly been used by juveniles.  Here the girls proceeded to tear up bunks, rip open blankets and tear electric light wires from the ceiling."

Unable to keep the women in custody, Tacoma police made a bold declaration:

Further attempts to control vice via jail terms, quarantine, and train tickets out of town all proved less than successful.  The dance hall stories slowly came to a halt, but not before one quarantine escapee, Babe Hayes, was arrested again on the streets of Tacoma.  From the February 2, 1918 edition of the Times:

"Miss Hayes was standing in a doorway on Pacific avenue when two detectives walked past.
'Stool-pigeons' she hissed at them.
When the officers started to take her to jail, she put up a man-sized battle, and had to be forcibly carried to the city hall."

I wish I had a photo of Babe to share.  She sounds like an amazing woman!

tacoma day

July 16, 1909 was "Tacoma Day" at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition in Seattle.

The "Tacoma Times" - never missing a chance to denigrate Seattle - declares that Tacoma Day events resulted in the "Greatest Crowd That Ever Invaded the City."  Tacoma residents arrived via steamboat "with banners and streamers declaring 'Tacoma's Pride is Justified,' and assuring outsiders that 'They'll Like Tacoma.' ... Everybody wore a great flaming badge 'Tacoma.'"  The centerpiece of the day's events was a "monster parade" during which the mayors of Tacoma and Seattle rode together in an automobile.  "Another large machine was loaded with thirty handsome Tacoma young women, and made a pleasing feature of the procession." 

The article doesn't mention the enormous sign erected along the waterfront in honor of Tacoma Day:

Two weeks later, on July 31st, the "Times" published an acrostic poem by Nathan Ward FitzGerald, ostensibly inspired by Tacoma Day.  FitzGerald is remembered today as the first follower of the Baha'i faith to settle in the Pacific Northwest.

"There's 'no place like it,' you will find."
 
images courtesy of the Library of Congress - chroniclingamerica.loc.gov