Failure in Tacoma

One hundred years ago, in January 1911, my great-grandfather was trying to get back on track after one of the few failures in his professional career.

The previous year, 1910, had begun with great promise.  G. Oliver Riggs was directing the city band in Grand Forks, N.D., and receiving accolades.  National music magazines The Metronome, American Musician and Art Journal and The Dominant had published stories about him in the summer of 1909, noting his work in Crookston and his move to the bigger city of Grand Forks.  The June 1909 issue of The Metronome called him “one of the leading cornet soloists in the West” and “one of the most successful directors of amateur bands in the United States.”

Perhaps encouraged by this success, and lured by the potential for greater opportunities, he quit the Grand Forks job in March 1910 to go to Tacoma, Wash., and form a professional band of about 40 members.  I’m not sure why he chose that city; he did have an uncle in the area, and he may have had friends or acquaintances who’d moved out there.

In a letter he wrote to the Tacoma News, published Feb. 22, 1910,  he said that Tacoma businessmen and musicians desired a high quality band, and that he had the qualifications to direct and manage such an organization.

“Everyone enjoys a fine band, but a poor band is an absolute nuisance,” G. Oliver wrote.  “A good band is the best kind of an advertisement for a city.  A poor band is also an advertisement, and I should imagine several poor bands in any one city all at the same time would advertise the city so properly along the wrong line that it would require considerable money spent during a year to offset one bad feature.

“You should not be satisfied with anything but the best.  Place your standard very high and demand splendid results.”

The city at the time already had a number of bands – as many as 11, according to one source.  But G. Oliver gained the backing of the Chamber of Commerce and the Commercial Club, and by April 1 had begun assembling a new band.  After four rehearsals, a band of 35 musicians from the city performed a concert at Wright Park.  The Sunday afternoon concert drew an estimated 6,000-7,000 people (Tacoma’s population in 1910 was about 84,000).

The initial response was encouraging.  As he’d done in other cities, G. Oliver proposed that businessmen put up the money for his salary – in this case, $4,000 for one year – and he would direct the band in a program of regular concerts, as well as at special events, bringing positive attention to the city.  Despite the support from the Chamber and the Commercial Club, the proposal appears to have stirred resentment and jealousy among some of the other band directors.  Some businessmen in the growing city were also balking, due to other ventures they already were being asked to support financially, like the building of a Y.M.C.A.

Faced with opposition, G. Oliver, it appears, changed tactics, and proposed forming the band under the Tacoma National Guard.  According to one news account, the Tacoma National Guard association adopted a resolution to form a Coast Artillery Band of 28 pieces, to be mustered in and equipped before May 30, 1910. 

This effort must not have worked out to his satisfaction, either, because by early June, G. Oliver announced that he was leaving Tacoma.  The June 7, 1910, article in the Tacoma Tribune states that G. Oliver was leaving because Tacoma’s cool summer evenings were unsuitable for outdoor band concerts.

“Band concerts are always most successful where the evenings are warm and people are driven out by the oppressive heat indoors to visit the parks.  In Tacoma such oppressive heat is unknown, and while the bandmaster enjoys this climate, it militates, he believes, against the success of his proposed Coast Artillery Band,” the article states.

I don’t believe the weather had much, if anything, to do with it.  It was clearly the politics.  That’s why I find this whole episode fascinating.  G. Oliver accomplished so much during his extensive career, it’s nice to know that he had some setbacks, too.  Most of us know what it feels like to not get the promotion you’d sought, or to find yourself treading water in a job, wondering whether your talents would be put to better use and would be greater appreciated elsewhere.  It’s never easy to go through those experiences.  When you look back on them, though, you realize they helped you grow personally and professionally.

I am speculating, of course, but I imagine G. Oliver gained important knowledge through this particular failure that in some way led to his later successes.

It wasn’t too long before he found his way.  After he left Tacoma, G. Oliver got a job teaching violin and cornet at Iowa Wesleyan University in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, where he had taught before taking the job in Crookston.  He toured with the college glee club that spring as a cornet soloist and organized a boys’ band of 35 members in Mt. Pleasant.  When the academic year concluded, G. Oliver took a job in Havre, Montana, and by the end of May he was conducting the first concert of the Havre city band.

I have no information about how suitable the Montana weather was for outdoor concerts, but judging by the fact that G. Oliver stayed in Havre until 1914, I think it’s fair to say that the city offered a better political climate than Tacoma.