What was Tacoma like in 1984? Unearthed video provides a glimpse — and it’s headed to TV
It was all in the basement.
Cheryl DeMark knew it would be, at least in broad strokes, but the longtime TV Tacoma producer says she doesn’t make her way down to the bowels of the station very often.
That’s where Tacoma’s municipal television station keeps its expansive archives, DeMark explained, mostly in boxes full of old analog tapes. It’s a collection spanning decades, the entirety of TV Tacoma’s time on the air, dating back to its inception in 1984.
Until recently, DeMark, who has worked for TV Tacoma for 23 years, had no idea how captivating the footage was — or the urgent attention so much of it needed, she said.
In that sense, the pandemic had a silver lining, DeMark told me this week.
When COVID shut the station down in 2020, she took home a load of antique Beta and Umatic equipment and got to work, eventually spending several months reviewing and cataloging the delicate video treasure she unearthed.
DeMark managed to make her way through more than 2000 tapes, which still only represents a small fraction of the TV Tacoma archives, but what she discovered was worth the effort, she said.
TV Tacoma Station Manager Andrew Hillier agrees. After reviewing DeMark’s findings, he decided the old footage needed a show of its own, providing immediate dividends to TV Tacoma and its viewers.
Destiny City Rewind, which debuted in March, is Hillier’s vision brought to life.
Produced in celebration of TV Tacoma’s 40th anniversary, the show will air monthly through the remainder of the year, creating fresh, new programming out of some of the city’s most important and iconic moments, captured in real-time by the station’s cameras.
The first episode of Destiny City Rewind featured a lengthy time capsule hearkening back to the construction of the Tacoma Dome, during TV Tacoma’s first year on the air, and a segment dedicated to the lone NBA season the Sonics spent playing in the City of Destiny. It also includes a 1992 TV Tacoma production marking the station’s 20th anniversary.
April’s episode focused on the history of the Daffodil Festival and the creation of the famed Wyland “Whaling Wall” mural, painted downtown in 1990, one of many the mononymous artist produced across the region.
According to Dan Strothman, a senior producer at TV Tacoma tasked with overseeing the production of Destiny City Rewind, future episodes will include everything from footage taken at the 1986 Tacoma Grand Prix, a full weekend of Formula 1 and Nascar racing on the streets surrounding the T-Dome, to random footage taken along Pacific Avenue in the days before the University of Washington was built.
“These old TV Tacoma pieces are really well put together, well edited and well shot,” Strothman said.
“It’s amazing stuff, so it’s been fun to show them off.”
Preserving TV Tacoma’s archive
After reviewing DeMark’s findings, Hillier also championed the digitization of TV Tacoma’s archive, in its entirety, ramping up an effort that began as pandemic busy work.
It’s a process that involves regularly driving truckloads of tapes to and from Victory Studios in Seattle, where the footage is being converted to files that fit on a computer hard drive — for posterity.
Time is of the essence, given the extent to which some of the station’s oldest tapes have already been damaged or deteriorated.
Eventually, all of the old TV Tacoma footage will be stored on digital linear tape, Hillier said.
It will also be made available to the public through a partnership with Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Room.
TV Tacoma employs a staff of six video producers, funded through nearly $2.4 million in annual franchise fees the station receives from local cable providers like Comcast and Lightcurve, according to figures provided by city spokesperson Maria Lee.
The station is best known for chronicling City Council meetings and other civic events, but Hillier said the digitization and preservation of TV Tacoma’s archives is equally essential to its mission.
“I think part of our role here is to be archivists, and archive what’s happened in Tacoma, not just for our generation here, but for future generations,” Hillier said.
“We knew we had this library, and it was starting to degrade and this needed to be done. Fortunately, we had a period where we could do that.”
According to Strothman, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and has long family ties to Tacoma, the footage he’s waded through during the production of Destiny City Rewind reveals glimpses of the city that help to tell its age-old story of resilience and determination.
“In 40 years, if there’s one theme that keeps coming up, it’s that Tacoma has a lot of potential,” Strothman said.
“Part of me laughs because people have been saying it forever, but it is true. If you look at the footage of downtown Tacoma from back then, it’s night and day,” he said.
DeMark, who has watched as much old TV Tacoma footage as anyone, is simply eager to share what she found in all those old boxes.
“When I was down in the basement archiving, I just know how excited I got viewing some of the stuff, so I can only imagine what people at home will feel,” she told me.
“Wait until you see it,” DeMark said.
“It’s amazing.”
This story was originally published April 26, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
