 The earliest road to use the current route of SR 7 first appeared in a 1900 map of the Tacoma area and has been part of the state highway system since 1909 , when the Alder @-@ Kosmos Road was added to the system as State Road 18 . State Road 18 became part of two branches of State Road 5 in 1923 and later branches of Primary State Highway 5 . During the 1964 highway renumbering , the branches became SR 7 . In 2002 , an auxiliary route that bypasses Tacoma , SR 704 , was established and construction started in 2008 to connect I @-@ 5 , Fort Lewis , McChord Air Force Base and SR 7 . 
