The Kidnap Capital of the West
North Tacoma was a humble neighborhood, with tidy houses. The Burr house was a brick English-style bungalow built in 1934. But Tacoma had an unflattering nickname: the “Kidnap Capital of the West.” In 1935, three years after the notorious Lindbergh kidnapping, nine-year-old George Weyerhaeuser was kidnapped.
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The son of timber baron John Philip Weyerhaeuser, George was taken off the street in broad daylight. A ransom was demanded, and the boys’ parents paid $200,000. Luckily, the boy was unharmed, and an arrest was made days later. The following Christmas, a man broke into a mansion in Tacoma that belonged to physician William Mattson.