Pierce county is fast becoming a network of transcontinental railroads centering in Tacoma, which, coupled with the steamboat traffic on the Sound, gives the county splendid traffic facilities. Pierce county [Page 75] for years was a non-competitive railroad point, the Northern Pacific being the only road to enter its vast fields of wealth. Within the last two years, however, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Union Pacific system, and the Great Northern, realizing the wealth of the county and the importance of Tacoma as a manufacturing center, the value of her perfect harbor for shipping, the vastness of her great stretch of level tidelands for factory sites and terminal yards, and the low cost at which freight can be transferred from the rails to the sails or _vice versa_, have entered the field and are now spending $11,000,000 on construction and terminal work in the city of Tacoma. The addition of these new roads means a wonderful impetus to the trade of Tacoma. The Tacoma Eastern railroad, a beautiful scenic route, beginning at Tacoma, runs in a southeasterly direction through a wonderfully fertile country and vast forests of splendid timber, to Rainier National Park and Mount Rainier (Mt. Tacoma). Several trolley lines are in operation, reaching all the near-by towns and connecting Tacoma and Seattle. In addition to these lines, many steamboats and crafts of all kinds, plying the waters of Puget Sound and the Pacific ocean, find abundant wharfage and anchorage in the harbor of Tacoma. The products of the world in large quantities pass through Tacoma in process of distribution. A constant stream of small crafts, running about the waters of the county, accommodate the local traffic. CITIES AND TOWNS.