(soft music) - He was a millionaire entrepreneur who ran for president on a populist platform.

He refused to acknowledge his losses and announced he would be America's dictator.

He believed he was the smartest man alive.

A prolific flow of ideas and verbiage poured from him and enthralled crowds as he traveled the country.

And when he embraced a cause, he would not let it go.

Sound familiar?

He called himself The Psycho.

And one of the things he embraced was a booming town on Puget Sound that he was determined to make world famous.

(playful music) George Francis Train was an American success story.

He made a fortune in shipping in the days of the clipper ships.

And when steam came along, true to his name, he shifted to railroads.

He was a major supporter of the Union Pacific and helped secure new methods of building and financing new lines.

The Union Pacific route made Omaha a major city and Train made even more money through real estate investments there.

He also traveled the world extensively.

First on business, then to prove a point.

Train was obsessed with moving faster and moving globally.

He put globetrotting to the test when he rounded the world in 80 days, he claimed with some reason to have inspired Jules Verne's subsequent bestseller, "Around the World in 80 Days."

When the brave and intrepid female reporter, Nellie Bly, circumnavigated the world in just 72 days, arriving back in New York in January of 1890, Train's competitive spirit was fired.

He was determined to beat Nellie Bly's record.

In addition to his travels, Train wrote endless tracts, poems, and epigrams about how to improve the world and to advance his eclectic agenda.

He was a one-man social media storm, an eccentric influencer.

His issues included women's suffrage and Irish independence, he was for them, and his personal belief that his genius connected him with the universe.

"I am possessed of great psychic force," claimed The Psycho.

Above all, he was motivated by boomtown energies.

He had visited Tacoma and was in the thrall of its prospects as a major trade city on the Pacific Coast, especially since its designation as the Western terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad.

The editor of the "Tacoma Ledger," R.F.

Radebaugh, was a fan, and he ran Train's musings and rants in his paper.

Train approached him with an idea that seemed ripe for the booming Tacoma, which Train dubbed "The City of Destiny."

(soft music) Train promised to outdo Bly by rounding the world in 60 days, and having his reports of the trip published in 40,000 newspapers for an audience of 100 million people, he said.

This trip would showcase Tacoma's position as the emerging U.S. city in the Pacific trade.

Train said he was ready to leave immediately if Tacoma welcomed him with funds and a forum.

Train pledged his stunt would be a dagger in the heart of competing cities.

He wrote, "Seattle, Seattle, death rattle, death rattle."

(maraca rattling) "Now is Tacoma's time, wire me at once."

Ever the salesman, he closed with a veiled thread.

"If no, shall go via Canadian Pacific "and give them the thunder."

The electric Train styled himself as the bringer of destiny.

Grandiosity was part of the Train brand.

The answer from Tacoma was an immediate yes.

The ledger sent Train $1,500, and the city embraced him like a conquering hero, though he hadn't left the dock.

Processions, speeches, bunting, his pre-departure lecture raised more than $4,000 for the trip, with box seats selling for up to $500.

The boomtown boomers were booming.

(upbeat music) The Tacoma ledger sent a reporter with him and shortly Train steamed westward.

The Psycho and his companion quickly girdled the earth by ship and rail.

Press reports tracked their progress and Tacoma got publicity.

Train made the round trip in 67 days, beating Nellie Bly's record, but Train was enraged when he arrived in Portland, Oregon and no special train had been arranged to sweep him into the home stretch.

He threw an epic tantrum, apparently claiming he might switch his local allegiance to Astoria.

He berated his Tacoma supporters, though his temper cooled when he was greeted by a happy Tacoma throng on his return to the city.

Still, he felt he was cheated of his 60-day goal.

His world-girdling success was not fully appreciated.

Some people said the trip was more about feeding Train's ego than extolling Tacoma's virtues.

Papers from rival cities sniped.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a column of Train criticism under the headline, "Demented Traveler."

The Portland Telegram said, quote, "A question agitating the people of Tacoma at present "is as to whether or not George Francis Train is crazy.

"The fact that he is attempting to boom the city of destiny "shows him to be of about as unsound mind "as those who secured him to do the booming."

To add insult, Tacoma's own Daily News ran an assessment that Tacoma's virtues needed no Train boosting.

Quote, "The trip was scarcely necessary "for calling attention to the city," it said.

Reports as to the resources, growth, prosperity, wealth, and prospects are of wonderful and entrancing character.

Tacoma's future seems assured.

Train hung around the Tacoma area for a while, but soon left.

He did another round-the-world trip for another Puget Sound city that wanted to bask in The Psycho's glory, but few people remember his embrace of Bellingham to launch one last globe-trotting stunt.

Train has fallen into obscurity.

More than a century later, Tacoma is still the city of destiny, but Seattle hasn't death-rattled yet.

(maraca shaking) (soft music)