Images from the City of Tumwater:
Steilacoom struck me as what Tumwater could have ended up like if I-5 had gone around the old town. Slow, a few old commercial buildings tucked neatly into a mostly residential town. Probably smaller than it is now, depending of course on how close I-5 got to town. Probably what saved what we now know as Steilacoom is that Pierce County gave the outskirts of town to the Army to build Fort Lewis.
Anyway, first off, I took a look at what the most basic impact I-5 had on Tumwater. In short, did the city father’s gamble in the 1950s, to raze the old Deschutes-side downtown for an interstate, work out?
So, here’s a spreadsheet that puts together two basic measures, structures (which I stumbled upon months ago) and population.
There was an early surge in structures from Tumwater after the highway went in, but Olympia quickly took the lead.
In terms of population, there also was a surge, and Tumwater is still leading in growth, but their lead is shrinking.
So, in short, yes the gamble worked. By the raw numbers, I-5 coming through certainly had an impact and seemingly surged Tumwaters growth (and in my opinion) made it the town it is today. But, that surge is subsiding, and I’d even venture to say that along with Lacey being created out of nearly nothing, Tumwater’s post I-5 growth advantage is now gone, and all the communities are on the same playing field.
Is the data for Thurston County correct? It looks like you have some of the same values under the column for Thurston population as you do for Thurston structures, which seems odd.
Also, makes me wonder how the three would compare if you looked at the ratio of population added to new structures built (i.e. some indication of changing population density). It looks like from 1940-1959, Tumwater was adding about four new people for every structure built, and the rate drops to about half in the following decades.
Thanks for the info. I learned only recently from a neighbor about Tumwater's bygone downtown, so this was timely.
You're right, somehow I completely transposed the Thurston County population data over the structure data.
Shoot, and I totally forgot where I got it from. I'll find it somewhere and I'll fix the spreadsheet. Thanks for pointing it out.