Visualize a city.

Maybe a warehouse district turns into loft-style living spaces. Maybe a former house of ill-repute turns into a restaurant, and maybe a former auto dealership turns into a bookshop.

Maybe? Look around Tacoma. King’s Books was, in fact, an auto dealership in 1909, but that particular product — the electric car — fizzled when the combustion engine burst onto the scene. At that point, automobile fever hit, and architecture was created to house this new industry.

This history goes largely forgotten because cars aren’t as sexy as, say, whorehouses. But this history is all over Broadway and even up on St. Helens where a once thriving commerce of cars created a much different backdrop than the antique shops, parking lots and print shops that we see now.

Historic Tacoma and the Tacoma Historical Society are two groups of community members actively engaged in presenting this history on all levels, but this summer they’ll pinpoint the automotive history of Tacoma as seen in its architecture in the free, self-guided Autowalk tour set to happen Thursday, July 19, from 5 to 8 p.m. While it’s recommended to start the tour at the Historical Society where an exhibition of artifacts is on view, and where maps are available, a person can start at any one of the spots on the tour, which winds from 9th and Broadway to 7th and Broadway, and then up to St. Helens where it ends up at 2nd Street.

Brett Santhuff, whose day job as an architect with Belay Architecture in Tacoma segues nicely into an interest in the historic preservation of architecture, works in an office building on Broadway.

“I’ve been working downtown two and a half years, and I didn’t know what this space had been originally.” 

Belay’s offices are in the upper level of a building that was, in point of fact, an auto shop and showroom.

Santhuff, who sits on the Historic Tacoma Board, has learned the history of that building and many more in his work chairing the Autowalk tour; in the process, he’s found reams of newspaper clippings, photos and other historic ephemera that patch together snippets of stories, which will be shared on the tour.

“Part of the purpose of this is to raise awareness of buildings that may be overlooked (as far as preservation goes.)”  Santhuff explains.

At this point in history, with the LeMay Museum in the works and with rumors of the demolition of the Mueller-Harkins Buick building at Sixth and St. Helens, a tour of Tacoma’s history from a somewhat forgotten perspective seems timely.

At the end of the tour, participants can sit down at the St. Helens Café for a no-host gathering and conversation; more information about Historic Tacoma can be found at www.historictacoma.net/events, and information about the Historical Society can be found at www.tacomahistory.org.

Historic Tacoma’s next event will be a tour of Craftsman Homes on September 15, with more information to follow on the site.