Vigilantes of the Big Bottom: A Land War in Lewis County
When an aggressive claim jumper tried to terrorize a homesteader, twenty-five settlers organized a committee of order to run him out of the woods.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The indications are that right here will be in a very few months the most stupendous excitement that Washington ever had. But even should there never be mined a ton of profitable ore, the surprising amount of road building which has all at once taken place in this vicinity has suddenly opened up to settlement the richest agricultural half of Lewis county. In every direction but to the westward are large areas of fertile bottom lands which are already creating a furore among homesteaders. In descending from the trail ridge to Mineral City your correspondent passed no less than twenty new ranchers' cabins. Until the advent of these roads all this section was unavailable. To the south is the Big Bottom and the Tilton river districts. To the east is the famous Sookoash valley. North is the great bottom watered by Mineral creek, East creek, Huckaby's creek and a dozen minor streams. Many pioneers have lived here for years without even the right of suffrage. Utterly ignored by the county in which they live, they have patiently packed out the necessaries of life all the way from Tacoma and waited for the good time coming when someone would join forces with them to open roads to a nearer civilization. The ranchers are of the best class, but even in the garden of Eden there was a snake. Long before the present bustle and stir, a Swede named Linn sold his homestead or settler's right to one Tollison, who immediately moved on to the place with his family. The advent of roads created a sudden rise in values. Linn returned the other day and ordered the Tollisons away. Tollison went away for the sheriff. Meanwhile Linn threw the woman out of doors in the rain and left her there all night with many threats of shooting. The settlers got wind of this state of affairs and rose up twenty-five strong. The last seen of Linn he was getting out of a rope noose and making through the woods. This is not the first case of attempted claim jumping by any means, and to prevent a repetition of the affair the twenty-five settlers have organized themselves into a permanent committee of order.
“The ranchers are of the best class, but even in the garden of Eden there was a snake.”
This 1892 struggle over land rights and intimidation by 'claim jumpers' reflects a classic frontier dynamic, but the core issue—disputes over the sudden inflation of land value due to infrastructure—is a familiar tale in modern Washington’s rapid development cycle.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.