This site is devoted to sharing stories from the diverse musical history of Tacoma, Washington, the City of Destiny. The goal of bringing these stories to an online environment is to take advantage of the ability to easily share interactive, multimedia resources.
The site is the brainchild of Kim Davenport, a musician, teacher, and local history researcher who makes her home in Tacoma’s Lincoln District. As the site grows, it will feature original content by Davenport, other researchers, and student work from the ‘Musical History of Tacoma’ course at the University of Washington Tacoma.
The concept behind this site began as I was planning to teach a new course I had designed for UW Tacoma, “Musical History of Tacoma”. On a campus with no music majors, I was aiming to create an interesting and enlightening elective class for students from a variety of backgrounds – sharing with them two of my primary passions: music, and exploring the history of Tacoma.
From my own research experience, I know two things about Tacoma’s musical history: first, that there are a multitude of untold stories; and second, that our musical history is a diverse one. Regardless of the time period or genre, one can find events which are of either musical or historical significance – in some cases, both!
My intention in developing this site is to share some of my own work, link to resources publicly available online, and especially to share the best of my students’ work. The online environment is ideal, as it will allow for easy sharing of links, audio and video, and photographs.
Tacoma Music History 