Job Carr Cabin Museum, Tacoma

Job Carr Cabin Museum tells the area’s early settlement story through a full-size replica of Carr’s 1865 log cabin. A Union Army veteran from Indiana, Carr chose the sloped waterfront after a canoe trip, hoping the Northern Pacific Railroad would make it its western terminus. The railroad chose a site about two miles away, but his claim still helped launch the settlement. While building the cabin, Carr lived for nine months in a rough cedar-bark shelter with his yellow cat, Tom.

The museum also presents Carr as more than a settler. He worked as a millwright and painter, served as postmaster, notary public, justice of the peace, and later became the first mayor. Though from a Quaker background opposed to violence, Carr and his sons Anthony and Howard fought for the Union because of their opposition to slavery. Anthony, a former Union Army topographical photographer, later took some of the earliest known photographs of the cabin and surrounding settlement.

The cabin visitors see today is a replica linked to the lost original. The first cabin was moved in 1900, relocated again in 1917, and dismantled in 1988 after long-term damage. The present museum opened in December 2000, supported by local fundraising and Gene Grulich’s scale model. Inside, displays and photographs connect visitors with early settlement life, Indigenous land history, family stories, and civic beginnings.