History
1893
The topography of Tacoma was very different in 1893. Garfield Park didn’t exist. Instead, Garfield Gulch continued up to where the Tacoma Lawn Tennis Club would eventually be built. The park was later built using loose fill. Today springs from the sprinklers in Garfield Park dot the walls of Garfield Gulch, watering it even in dry summer months.
Saw mills were spaced along Commencement Bay.
Stadium Bowl didn’t exist yet. Instead, Old Woman’s Gulch was much bigger than it is today.
A railway ran along the slope above the bay. Today that is the railroad grade section of the Bayside Trail.
1920
The original raildroad line seems to have been abandoned by 1920. A new line ran along the bay next to Bayside Road. Schuster Parkway hadn’t been built yet.
Further up the hill, the Tacoma Tennis Club and Annie Wright had been built. A new road called Park Drive wrapped around a partially filled in Garfield Gulch.
1962
Here’s an aerial photo from 1962. Schuster Parkway does not exist yet.
1966
This aerial photo from 1966 shows the rail line and grain towers. Schuster Parkway has not yet been built.
1973
On December 27, 1973, The City of Tacoma applies for a federal grant with the Department of the Interior. This is a Land & Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant.
The Bayside Trails work is slated to cost $138,720.
The grant covers 50% of that, $69,360. Work must be completed by December 31, 1975. Detail is here.
As part of that grant, the City of Tacoma is required to keep the park open indefinitely. If the city fails to do so, they must replace the park with one of equal value.
As of 2025, the city appears to be in violation of this obligation.
The project was paid for with the $69,360 from the grant, $34,680 in bonds and another $34,680 from the city. Detail is here.
Adjusted for inflation to 2025 dollars, the project had a total cost of approximately $820,000.
1974
Work begins on the Bayside Trail. We have some photos capturing both the construction of Schuster Parkway and that of the Bayside Trails.
1975
On May 16, 1975 the City of Tacoma completes work on the Bayside Trails. A consolidated document describing the buildout of the trails is here. Schuster Parkway was completed at this same time.
The grand opening of the Bayside Trails was on May 17, 1975. It seems to have been quite a party!
It’s amazing to read the stories and get a sense of the optimism of the time. Hopefully Tacoma can recapture that.
1977
On October 25, 1977 the Tacoma News Tribune reported that the city had won an award for the Bayside Trails.
Earlier that year, on January 29, 1977 someone took some lovely black and white photographs of the trail which are below.
1979
The City of Tacoma publishes this amazing brochure describing the Bayside Trails.
1981
On January 11, 1981 a paper published a nice story describing pleasant walks along the Bayside Trail.
1984
By September 22, 1984 the huts were falling into disrepair. At this point they were nearly a decade old. We don’t believe any work was ever done to maintain them.
1994
On September 16, 1994 Marguerite Austin from the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation inspected the Bayside Trails. She found them to be open and in compliance with the grant. She notified the Tacoma Metropolitan Park District director of this.
2002
On March 6, 2022 a letter to the editor was published describing the poor state of the trails. The letter describes the trail as taken over by “street people.”
Interestingly, the mayor at the time, Bill Baarsma, apparently acted quickly, working with the police to clean up the trails.
2010
On March 31, 2010, Heather Ramsay with the National Park Services discovers a “possible conversion.” That is, she finds that the city has closed the Bayside Trails despite being obligated to keep them open to the public. She notifies Karl Jacobs at the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO) of this (the federal government provided money to Tacoma to construct the trails and the RCO administers the grant).
2011
On March 19, 2011 Karl Jacobs at the RCO organizes a walkthrough of the Bayside Trails. In it he documents that it has been closed by the city in violation of their grant obligations. The city had even posted no tresspassing signs on this public property. Slides detailing that are here.
On March 21, 2011 Environmental Steward Robert Girvin and others walk the trail.
On March 31, 2011 the city of Tacoma ran a public workshop. This seems to have been an attempt to find a path to compliance. These slides were used to frame the conversation.
2013
On October 3, 2013, Karl Jacobs from the RCO once again inspects the Bayside Trails. In this inspection he focuses specifically on the entrances to the Schuster Slope section along Stadium Way. The city has just completed pouring new sidewalks. In that process they have intentionally destroyed the entrances to the trail.
Karl again finds the city in violation of the original grant terms and documents that here.
2014
On October 3, 2014, The State of Washington Recreation and Conversation Office (RCO) sends an email to Mayor Strickland’s office. This states that the city of Tacoma is in violation of its obligations related to the Bayside Trails. It seems the city simply ignored this notice.
2015
The Tacoma News Tribune ran some stories on the gulches in Tacoma.
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article25873018.html
http://media.thenewstribune.com/static/pages/gulch/home.html#map
http://media.thenewstribune.com/static/pages/gulch/maps.html
Robert Girvin works in the gulch to plant native species.
2018
On April 6, 2018 the NPS marks the Bayside Trails as closed in a compliance report. Action is marked as pending.
2022
On February 2, 2022, Ben Lackey moves up the street from Garfield Park. He begins walking the trails, fixing the up and researching the history.
Ben connects with Robert Girvin, the 20 year environmental steward of Garfield Gulch. Robert had previously worked to open “Robert’s Way,” the connector between Garfield Park and Park Drive.
It becomes apparent that many others in the neighborhood do work to keep up the park and surrounding area, for instance, Rebecca, who twice a day walks the park cleaning up garbage. Others, like Mark, recall running the trails every morning before they fell into disrepair. Another neighbor mentions attending keggers at the trail huts in the 1980s as a Stadium High School student.
2023
On March 22, 2023, Ben finds a sign along Robert’s Way saying the connector down to the Garfield Gulch trail is closed due to Storm / Sewer repair. No repair work is going on and the trail is blocked off. Ben tries calling the number listed and gets no response. Presumably the sign had been there for a long time.
Starting in June volunteers begin removing fallen logs along the trail. We later find out that the city and parks had worked together to fell logs onto the trail. They did this in an attempt to block off the trail.
Volunteers cut vines that were killing the larger, more established trees.
Vine cutting parties, inspired by an earlier environmental steward remove invasive English Ivy killed the trees.
As we begin walking the Garfield Gulch section of the trail end to end, we notice that people are living on the trail.
Ben tries reporting those to 311. Nothing happens. He attempts to escalate the issue to district 2 council member Sarah Rumbaugh (the trails are within the district 2 boundary, which is represented by Ms. Rumbaugh). She is initially non responsive. She later states the trail should remain closed and that better fences should be built.
Ben puts calls into the police and is ultimately directed to the community liason officer (CLO). The CLO states that the police have been directed by city council to not interfere with homeless camps. Instead NCS/HEAL are supposed to be responsible for “outreach.”
Ultimately it becomes clear that removal of a camp is possible. However it requires filling a 311 ticket and then chasing it for weeks. After HEAL/NCS conducts outreach, they eventually remove the camp. However, the same camp typically sets up down the road and the process begins again. 80% of the people HEAL/NCS conduct outreach to refuse shelter, preferring to live in parks and on streets.
By June 22, 2023, Ben had realized that there used to be a lot more trail than the Garfield Gulch trail. He’d found the 1977 map showing all the trailheads. He tried walking from Garfield Gulch along the railroad grade but found that blocked by laurel, a wasps nest and a shocking blackberry bramble.
So, using the old map, he found a trail entrance at Stadium Bowl. The old totem marker from 1975 was still present, though a chainlink fence with a gate now existed at the trailhead. Ben was able to walk from the bottom of Stadium Bowl, along the railroad grade back to Garfield Gulch. The first section was easy going. Some mix of deer, the homeless and Stadium High School students had been keeping the trail passable.
Further down, near Garfield Gulch, he encountered the blackberry bramble again. A neighbor shouted “that doesn’t go anywhere!” The path did go somewhere. Using pruning shears Ben was able to work through the blackberry bramble and connect back with restored (but not yet reopened) Garfield Gulch section of the Bayside Trail. This was our first, and nearly only, encounter with NIMBYism on the trail.
Ben began going door to door handing out fliers for work parties. As more people used the Garfield Gulch trail and began to explore the Railroad Grade section as well, more and more garbage was found. Ben trucked many loads of garbage to the dump.
On one work party we picked up over 20 soccer balls from Annie Wright. The kids at the school were just kicking balls over the fence and leaving them. We talked to the school and resolved the issue. Beyond that, though Robert was able to work with the school kids on restoration projects along Robert’s Way. Different grades planted native plants in different patches.
In all this, it became increasingly clear that the legitimate use of the trail would encroach on homeless camps. Ben was opening multiple 311 tickets every day. Those were being closed or ignored. He began escalating more forcefully with the district 2 city council member, Sarah Rumbaugh. Nothing happened. Eventually after weeks of hounding, the police showed up and cleared a homeless camp at the bottom of Garfield Gulch.
During this period Ben was walking the trail daily with a garbage bag always filled and filing numerous 311 tickets.
On July 15, 2023, Ben was walking the Railroad Grade and was assaulted by someone whose property abuts the trail. When the trail closed, he took down his fence and expanded his backyard onto public property where the trail is. He had a rather vested interest in not seeing the trail reopened. He sprayed Ben with a garden hose for 30 minutes while the neighbors videoed it. The police didn’t come. Ultimately this resulted in an anti-harrassment order.
He built barricades to try to block off the trail. Ben opened 311 tickets and the city removed those. He ultimately dug a pit and filled it with tar and straw — straight out of Looney Toons. Ben opened a 311 ticket and the city filled that in. This process dragged on for a year into 2024. He has now largely given up blocking public property, though he occasionally shouts at passerby.
This is by far the worst case of NIMBYism we’ve seen in the trail work. The vast majority of neighbors would like the trails restored. Regardless, no one should be allowed to monopolize public property for their own benefit.
On July 22, 2023 Ben, various volunteers, Metro Parks representatives and a Washington Conservation Corps (WCC) employee walk the Garfield Gulch section of the trail and most of the Railroad Grade. This is the first time Metro Parks had been involved in the trail since abandoning it roughly 15 years before. Ben had been corresponding with Mike Yaden and requesting involvement. Mike delegated to one of his reports in Tacoma Parks’ CHIP-in! program.
This marks the point at which Metro Parks opened the area to public use again. This would not have happened if not for the volunteers who cleared the trail prior. That created a virtuous cycle of public involvement that improved the trails, ultimately bringing it to a state that Metro Parks stopped claiming it was closed.
By September of 2023, the Garfield Gulch loop was entirely passable, though there was a scramble up a steep section with a rope. It was possible to walk the trail without being overwhelmed by garbage or homeless camps. We also started seeing many fewer break ins, car prowls, etc in our neighborhood up the street.
The kids at Annie Wright were even working on their restoration patches.
On November 1, 2023, Ben and others walk the trail with the non profit trail advocacy group, Washington Trails Association (WTA). Parks Tacoma had a contract with WTA that had lapsed. Because of Ben’s lobbying, Mike Yaden at Metro Parks was looking to restore that contract. This walkthrough was to scope work.
It was a little strange in that Parks planned to pay WTA to improve the trails. The price was on the order of $120,000. This was strange because that work could have been accomplished for free or at most, the cost of materials. Nonetheless, it was great to have both Parks Tacoma and WTA working together to improve the Garfield Gulch section of the Bayside Trails.
WTA uses hand tools for their work. This is because much of their work focuses on wilderness areas where machinery cannot be used because of the Wilderness Act. However the Bayside Trails are not a wilderness area, so other options for trail restoration may be possible.
Regardless, this work ultimately resulted in the switchbacks eliminating the rope, various steps, an improved catwalk and box steps.
The first WTA work party was on December 2, 2023. It was a bit strange. We worked on one of the best sections of trail, improving it. We later found out that was because the WTA didn’t yet have a plan for the other parts of the trail, so they were just treading water creating busy work. That was characteristic of both the WTA and CHIP-in! work parties. There’s a lot that could be done to improve volunteerism. Such busy work discourages people and then they don’t volunteer agree. Rather, putting pople to accomplish tasks that need doing is a better way to energize them.
As we wrapped up 2023, the Garfield Gulch loop was passable, though with a rope to ascend a step section. A catwalk crossed the muddy wet area at the bottom of the gulch. The railroad grade was clear all the way to Schuster Parkway. Crucially, the Garfield Gulch section was formally open and endorsed as such by parks. That created a virtuous cycle where more users traveled the trail, “activating” it. It was a huge victory for grassroots organizing and a nice culmination of two years of work from the neighbors without meaningful support (and in some cases with active negativity) from local government.
2024
As 2024 started, we organized more work parties. Some were standalone, such as vine cutting parties. BBQs oftened followed. Coffee and donuts were handed out to volunteers at the beginning of the party. Ben printed flyers, posting them at coffee shops and doorbelling to hand them out. That drove attendance to work parties.
On April 13, 2024 Metro Parks CHIP-in! ran a work party. Attendance was driven by Ben going door to door handing out flyers. The work party focused on spreading a pile of mulch that Metro Parks had dumped at the Bayside trailhead approximately five years before but never spread as well as some additional mulch dumped for the party. The mulch is to protect newly planted native plants. The work party did not focus on restoring the trail as the CHIP-in! employees were unequipped to do so.
On April 23, 2024 Ben walked Garfield Gulch and a portion of the Railroad Grade with Parks Tacoma director Mike Yaden. Yaden is responsible for the smaller parks in Tacoma, including Garfield Park and the adjoining gulch. Mike had not previously walked the trail. He was supportive of it and introduce Ben to one of his reports to organize more CHIP-in! work parties.
Mike pointed out that Metro Parks owns a piece of property at the intersection of N 6th St and N Stadium Way. Many in the Stadium neighborhood refer to this as “Secret Park” as it has no signage to indicate it is public property. Mike noted that this property could be used to create a new trailhead for the Bayside Trail, enhancing access. From later investigation, it seems that was part of the original 1975 plan but dropped from the scope for some reason.
On June 28, 2024 Katrina Fernandez created a new watercolor map showing the restored and reopened Garfield Gulch trail along with its connection to the Railroad Grade section.
Over the summer of 2024 we realized that CHIP-in! was not set up for trail work. The CHIP-in! parties inevitably focused on removing ivy with hand tools rather than restoring the trail. Ben escalated to Mike Yaden repeatedly with little effect. The CHIP-in! parties ultimately had little impact on improving the trail. It was a lost opportunity.
On the positive side, Metro Parks continues to support the environmental steward, Robert Girvin. They provide hookups to water new native plants. Planting parties happen regularly, putting in a variety of natives including fir and aspen.
The CHIP-in! person began working on a proposal to build a trail (rather than improve existing) in Garfield Gulch. Ben suggested focusing on improving the existing trail, however they ignored this request. The plan to build a new trail was ultimately abandoned in favor of WTA work improving the existing trail.
In July 2024, Ben visited the Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public library. Many of the documents earlier in this history come from there. That is when the history of the Bayside Trail really began to crystalize. With that, it became apparent home much the citizens of Tacoma had lost through poor government and lack of maitenance.
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During this period, trail use began to ramp up. We’d created markers on Google Maps, a Facebook page, handed out flyers and so on. We saw a person walking their cat, others out for a morning run. A geocache even showed up. None of this was possible just two years before.
Through their inquiries, Ben and others had been told by the city that the Bayside Trail no longer existed. But, it’d become clear that the Railroad Grade section very much did exist. Curiousity finally overcame belief and Ben walked the Schuster Slope section on July 23, 2024. It turned out that section was alive and well, a bustling homeless camp.
On July 24, 2024 the city wrote this FAQ on the Bayside Trails. In it the city falsely states that the trails must remain closed due to lack of ADA and emergency access. This statement is ridiculous as we’re allowed to have access to similar trails throughout Point Defiance. The city then claims that there is landslide risk throughout the trail. In this claim the city seems to be conflating risky areas on Schuster Slope with the railroad grade that has been present since at least 1893. The FAQ is a revisionist document that modifies the reason the trails were closed from the original and shameful homeless and drug issues to more modern excuses. It seems to have been produced in response to Ben pushing to reopen the Bayside trails with a variety of elected officials and civil servants.
Also on July 24, 2024 then deputy mayor John Hines was doing his walk across Tacoma. Ben met Hines and Rumbaugh to walk the trail. They walked the Garfield Gulch section of the trail. Time did not permit walking the railroad grade and Rumbaugh had no interest in doing so regardless.
On August 15, 2024 Metro Parks attempted to close access to the Railroad Grade section of the trail. Unknown people later removed the tape and barricade. Ben wrote a letter to Mike Yaden complaining about the closure. This pointed out that the “hazardous conditions” sign was inaccurate. Mike never responded to this email.
That same day Metro Parks posted to their website and Facebook claiming that the Garfield Gulch trail was not part of the Bayside Trail system.
On August 23, 2024 Ben walked the railroad grade up through the bottom of Stadium Bowl with the Chief Policy Analyst to Mayor Woodards, Warren Bucoda. Bucoda seemed excited about the trail and in principle supportive of a reopening. However in follow up emails no action was taken. Eventually the slope stability excuse was raised as an excuse to leave the trails closed.
n late 2024 Metro Parks renewed their contract with WTA. Metro Parks had let the contract lapse. This was problematic as Metro Parks uses WTA to maintain “natural areas,” so they had lapsed on their maitenance as well. With the renewed contract, work began to improve the Metro Parks owned section of the Bayside Trail in Garfield Gulch. That focused initially on removing the step section with a rope.
On October 17, 2024 WTA led a work party completing a significant portion of the switchback work on the upper Garfield Gulch trail.
On October 25, 2024 Ben and then deputy mayor John Hines walked the railroad grade up through the bottom of Stadium Bowl. In those discussions, Hines seemed supportive of a trail reopening.
On October 26, 2024 the WTA ran another work party continuing work on the switchback on the upper Garfield Gulch trail.
IBy November 16, 2024 WTA had completed work on the new switchback where the rope previously was. This was a great improvement, making the loop a lot more passable for a wider variety of trail users.
WTA also removed the surface or tread, from much of the trail. This is part of the WTA’s trailbuilding process. They did this in early winter and then left it until the following spring.
2025
On February 28 2025, the WTA kicked off work again, building a new catwalk. WTA dropped a log onto the lower trail to block it while they were working.
On March 3, 2025 Ben presents to the North End Neighborhood Council on the trails. That presentation is here.
Following the presentation on March 7, 2025 a group of NENC representatives walk the Garfield Gulch, railroad grade and a portion of Schuster Slope from the parkway up to 1 N Stadium Way.
On April 1, 2025 the WTA began work on box steps on the lower part of the Garfield Gulch trail.
On April 24, 2025, Ben posted to Reddit in r/tacoma on the history of the Bayside Trails. https://www.reddit.com/r/Tacoma/comments/1k7492l/restoring_the_bayside_trails/. The post had over 100,000 views and kicked off a very engaged online discussion on the trails with the overwhelming majority of people in favor of reopening the entire trail system.
The city has long had plans to build a trail parallel to Schuster Parkway. The “Dome to Defiance” trail project dates back a decade. It had a planned budget of $49m to build an elevated sidewalk along Schuster Parkway. This would run parallel to the Bayside Trail in an inferior location. The Bayside Trail would remain closed. By May 20, 2025 the city had revised the project, ballooning the price a staggering $115m of which they had allocated $19m. To proponents of the Bayside Trail, it seems more prudent to spend thousands of dollars fixing up our existing trail, rather than 10s of millions on an inferior new trail.
By May 8, 2025 the WTA was continuing work on the box steps very slowly. Metro Parks had put barriers up to block the trail.
The original catwalk had been demolished but the debris from it had not been removed. This was ultimately left until June when it was cleaned up by community members.
WTA work had been ongoing for nearly a year. In speaking with WTA workers we found out the reason for the extended timelines. Rather than focusing on completing the project, WTA was using Garfield Gulch as a convenient in city training ground for their workers. This showed a lack of consideration for the trail users to whom the Bayside Trails belong. This should have been an easy issue to resolve with proper communication between (the newly renamed) Parks Tacoma and the community it exists to support. While we now have the Garfield Gulch section of the Bayside trails back, this behavior is concerning as it mirrors the lack of discourse that caused the original closure of the trails.
Following the April Reddit post on May 10, 2025, a group of citizens walk the trail to promote reopening it. This fostered more trail use for the Garfield Gulch section of the Bayside Trails. It’s also made it clear that there are many citizens who want to help in restoring the trails, if only the City of Tacoma will allow them.
On July 5, 2025 Ben received a response to one of the many public records requests he submitted related to the Bayside Trails. Those records request and the earlier Northwest Room research are where much of the early history of the trails came from. The full documents are here. The emails from that request are stored here as well for easier viewing.
On July 25, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/baysidetrails/ was created.
As of July 27, 2025 WTA had not completed the box steps on the lower Garfield Gulch trail. WTA was instead focusing work in the mountains. WTA planned to finish the box steps in the fall of 2025.
As of July 28, 2025 the PRISM site shows Bayside Trails status as “Active Completed since 03/29/2010.”
On July 29, 2025, http://baysidetrails.org/ was published!
On November 4, 2025 Ben Lackey is running for city council in district 2. One of his three campaign pillars is reopening the entire Bayside Trails system. https://benlackey.com/bayside-trails