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214 stories matching plat
- The Streets Seattle Was About to Give Away
A city council committee votes to vacate waterfront streets south of Charles Street, and the city engineer warns that private tide-land leases could cut Seattle off from deep water.
- The State Tried to Plat Their Islands
Brawley and Kinnear went to court to stop a state tide-land plat from turning 140 acres of Elliott Bay into lots and streets.
- The Log-Jam Monopoly: Who Controls a Western Washington River?
When Joseph Doyle’s logs were trapped inside a private boom company’s platted stretch of the Skokomish River, he sued—and put the whole question of river monopolies and public waterways on trial in Shelton.
- The 3,249-Acre Map That Laid Out Seattle’s Waterfront
In 1895, King County appraisers filed the first full plat of Seattle’s tide lands—reserving broad rail avenues, harbor blocks and a street grid that still shadows the modern waterfront.
- The Tide Lands Plat: A Waterfront Laid Out for Sale
State appraisers file the plat for the Tacoma tide lands, opening 600 acres of shore and mud flats to sale—unless upland owners claim them first.
- Who Owns the Shoreline? Olympia’s Tide-Land Fight
A citizens’ commission debated street grids, meander lines, and property values as appraisers prepared to price the Olympia waterfront.
- The Tide Land Freeze: Ballard’s Waterfront Plats Go to Court
A judge restrains appraisers from filing supplemental tide-land plats as landowners, the state land commission and the county auditor fight over who controls the shore.
- The New Tide-Flat Plat Put a Foundry in the Street
Seattle shore owners crowded the county auditor's office to see how a new Elliott Bay plat redrew their waterfront—and some found their improvements sitting on paper streets.
- The Ladd Estate Fights to Keep the Tide-Land Mapmakers Off Its Riverfront
A South Seattle landowner sues state appraisers over new plats along the Duwamish, warning that the survey would cloud titles to reclaimed riverfront acres.
- The Town That Was Never Filed: A Buyer Sues Over Columbia's Missing Plat
Robert Blackburn paid for a lot in a heavily promoted new Seattle townsite, then discovered that no plat of Columbia had ever been recorded with the county auditor.
- Seattle's Waterfront Was Up for Grabs — and Everyone Filed a Claim
With the tide-land plats at last filed, hundreds of buyers have staked overlapping claims across Elliott Bay, and officials are predicting years of litigation over who really owns the shore.
- Before the Tide Lands Sold, Seattle Had to Erase Its Own Streets
Property owners rushed the City Council to vacate old street lines across Elliott Bay tide lands before a May 13 purchase deadline—or risk tangled titles and lost waterfront.
- Pike Street Runs Into a Lake: The Man Hired to Untangle Seattle's Eight-Named Streets
In 1895 the city handed City Engineer Thomson the worst street-naming mess on the Pacific Coast — five Cedar streets, three Adams, four Elliotts — and one road with eight different names. Then the ladies of Queen Anne Hill went to war over who got to be Highland Avenue.
- The Map That Erased a Business on the Seattle Waterfront
Property owners revolt as tide-land appraisers redraw the shore and wipe an upland business house off the map.
- The City That Vanished: Seattle’s First Real Estate Bubble and the Ghosts of Terry’s Addition
A look back at January 1890, when Seattle’s land boom was in full swing, prices were soaring, and developers like George Dorffel were selling lots in new subdivisions to speculators eager for a quick profit.
- The Paper Town in the Canyon
Speculators filed a plat for 'National Park City,' a townsite consisting of 1,960 lots, some located on a sheer, uninhabitable basaltic mountain.
- The Mayor Won't Sign, the Railroad Can't Build, and a Saloonkeeper Sues the Town
Newport's council spends a long evening tangled in street vacations for the Idaho & Washington Northern, unsafe crossings, a disputed plat of survey monuments — and trades a lawsuit for a liquor license.
- The 15,000-Word Plan to Build a Great Harbor on Seattle's Tide Flats
Virgil Bogue's report to King County proposes dredged slips, public docks, a union station and a jointly owned terminal railroad—if Seattle can sort out its tide-land titles.
- The Great Land Office Fire at Olympia
A catastrophic fire destroys essential territorial land records and plats, forcing homesteaders and pre-emption claimants to restart their filings from scratch.
- A Missing Lawyer, a $350 Deed, and the North Olympia Land Scheme
With Attorney D. P. Ballard absent, Olympia lawyers are tracing suspicious transfers in a platted addition—land already sold to dozens of owners, now used as security for a $4,000 mortgage.
- The Fight Over the Wishkah River
Prominent landowners seek an injunction to halt the surveying and platting of tide lands, citing concerns over potential river obstruction and property rights.
- Chris Ennis Carves a Suburb Out of 73 Acres East of Town
The old Aeils tract is platted into acre lots and put on the market, as Walla Walla's edge pushes outward toward Mill Creek.
- 130 Waterfront Owners, and Nobody Knows Where Their Land Is
A boom-era plat, a harbor replatted by the state without regard to it, and a tide land commission trying to untangle the mess at Whatcom before the courts get it.
- The Ghost of Tacoma's Original Downtown
Before the railroad turned Tacoma into a boomtown, the city's future was fought over by competing pioneers and land speculators.
- The Ground Under Rainier Addition: A Seven-Year Title Fight Ends—for Now
After three trials and repeated reversals, Henry S. Alger is declared owner of a tract already platted into lots and improved by buyers who trusted the Hill title.
Also about this, in other words
- Tacoma Sealed Its Waterfront Deal With a Telegram
The city council approved a tide-land plat after railroad and land-company officials promised rights-of-way and waterways—over dissenters who wanted more than long-distance assurances.
- The Price of a Whitewash Job
A working man in Tacoma learns the hard way that 'at par' is a relative term when his employer tries to pass off devalued currency for honest labor.
- The Postmaster's Temperance Trap
O.P. Bruihl, the Winona postmaster, faces legal trouble in a case linked to a local community feud.