Only twenty-some years after its founding Tacoma boasted this magnificent Italian Renaissance brick and terra cotta edifice. Architect E.A. Heatherton sailed up from San Francisco in 1892 to construct the building for the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce. Once underway it was quickly adapted for government use and the two groups swapped properties. Heatherton outfitted the composition with eight-foot thick walls at the base and a bracketed campanile tower under a copper tiled roof. The clock and chimes came courtesy of Hugh C. Wallace, a future ambassador to France, in 1904 as a memorial to his daughter. The government stayed until 1959 and after dodging the wrecking ball during ten years of vacancy the old city hall was reborn as space for offices, shops, and restaurants.
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