The Political Graveyard: Tacoma, Washington

PoliticalGraveyard.com

Tacoma, Washington
Mayors, Postmasters, Collectors of Internal Revenue

Mayors of Tacoma, 1883-2020 (may be incomplete!)
John W. Sprague 1883-84 Robert Jacob Weisbach 1884-86 Jacob Mann 1886-87 Ira Town 1887-88 Henry Drum 1888-89 Samuel Adams Wheelright 1889-90 Stuart Rice 1890-91 George B. Kandle 1891-92 Herbert Huson 1892-93 Edward Orr 1893-98 Angelo V. Fawcett 1898 Johnson Nickeus 1898-1900 Louis D. Campbell 1900-04 George P. Wright 1904-07 John Linck 1907-09 Angelo V. Fawcett 1909-10 William W. Seymour 1910-14 Angelo V. Fawcett 1914-18 Crocket M. Riddell 1918-22 Angelo V. Fawcett 1922-29 Melvin G. Tennent 1929 James G. Newbegin 1929-30 Melvin G. Tennent 1930-34 George A. Smitley 1934-38 John C. Seigle 1938-39 J. J. Kaufman 1939-40 Harry P. Cain 1940-46 C. Val Fawcett 1946-50 John H. Anderson 1950-54 Harold M. Tollefson 1954-56 John H. Anderson 1956-58 Ben Hanson 1958-62 Harold M. Tollefson 1962-67 A. L. 'Slim' Rasmussen 1967-69 Gordon Johnston 1969-77 Mike Parker 1977-81 Doug Sutherland 1981-89 Karen Vialle 1989-93 Jack Hyde 1993-94 Harold Moss 1994-95 Brian Ebersole 1995-2001 Mike Crowley 2001 Bill Baarsma 2001-09 Marilyn Strickland 2009-17 Victoria Woodards 2017-

Events and Candidates (may be incomplete!)

1904 Apr 5: George P. Wright (Dem), elected; Louis D. Campbell (Rep), defeated.

1934 Feb 27: George A. Smitley, nominated; John C. Seigle, nominated; Melvin G. Tennent, defeated in primary; Hans Johnson, defeated in primary; V. M. Ellison, defeated in primary; Walter W. Whetstone, defeated in primary; Lee H. Johnson, defeated in primary; Paul I. Jones, defeated in primary; John W. Corliss, defeated in primary.

1934 Mar 13: George A. Smitley, elected; John C. Seigle, defeated.

1938 Feb 21: John C. Seigle, nominated; George A. Smitley, nominated; G. B. Kerstetter, defeated in primary; Marie B. Rae, defeated in primary; W. F. Gallivan, defeated in primary.

1938 Mar 8: John C. Seigle, elected; George A. Smitley, defeated.

1939 Apr 12: John C. Seigle, died in office.

1994: Jack Hyde, died in office.

2001: Brian Ebersole, resigned.

Postmasters at Tacoma, 1879-1971 (may be incomplete!)
Augustus Walters as of 1879 Lammon E. Sampson 1884-88 John C. Weatherred 1888-89 John D. Hogue 1889-93 Alanson B. Case 1893-97 Obadiah B. Hayden 1897-99 John B. Cromwell 1899-1905 Henry L. Votaw 1905-10 F. L. Stocking 1910-15 Calvin W. Stewart 1915-22 Clyde J. Backus 1922-32 Edwin Carlson 1932-33 George P. Fishburne 1933-34 George P. Fishburne 1934-46 John P. McMonagle 1946-53 Vernon A. Utzinger 1953-57 Harvey L. Jones 1957-61 John P. McMonagle 1961 John P. McMonagle 1961-71

U.S. Collectors of Internal Revenue at Tacoma, 1909-51 (may be incomplete!)
Benjamin D. Crocker as of 1909 David J. Williams as of 1917-19 Burns Poe as of 1927-32 Clark Squire as of 1941-51

"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872

The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 338,260 politicians, living and dead.

	The coverage of this site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, members of major federal commissions; and political appointee (pre-1969) postmasters of qualifying communities; (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions; (6) Americans who served as "honorary" consuls for other nations before 1950. Note: municipalities or communities "qualify", for Political Graveyard purposes, if they have at least half a million person-years of history, inclusive of predecessor, successor, and merged entities.
	The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.
	Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.
	The official URL for this page is: https://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/WA/ofc/tacoma.html .
	Links to this or any other Political Graveyard page are welcome, but specific page addresses may sometimes change as the site develops.
	If you are searching for a specific named individual, try the alphabetical index of politicians.
Copyright notices: (1) Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. (2) Politician portraits displayed on this site are 70-pixel-wide monochrome thumbnail images, which I believe to constitute fair use under applicable copyright law. Where possible, each image is linked to its online source. However, requests from owners of copyrighted images to delete them from this site are honored. (3) Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2025 Lawrence Kestenbaum. (4) This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.
What is a "political graveyard"? See Political Dictionary; Urban Dictionary.
Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDLmi.com. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on February 17, 2025.